#i think i got the excel portions to read similar to what you would get navigating through a spreadsheet with arrow keys

[unpretty]

not gonna reblog it again but i edited into that other reblog that i finally added a text transcription to nominal with edits that make it easier for screen readers to understand it properly. i tested it using microsoft edge with the andrew multilingual voice to find the hiccups, but if more common reader software finds other weirdness let me know and i'll see what i can do. it should also be usable as a script if anyone wants to podfic it.

[differenceonlyyoucanmake]

12 Dancing Princesses Thoughts/ Headcanons/ Assorted Stuff that Came to Me in a Dream

I’m kind of tired, so this may be incomplete. I wanted to put it out there, though. My dreams have mostly been from Courtney’s perspective, not an omniscient one. Because of this, there may be some gaps.

Ashlyn:

- Deserved so much better

- It actually makes me upset. I woke up from one of my 12dp dreams in TEARS because she deserved so much better.

- After Isabella passed, Ashlyn took on the role of being a maternal presence to her sisters. She did this extremely well, but it’s also heartbreaking how she pushed herself to grow up.

- Randolph was not a capable father during the lowest periods of his grief, and Ashlyn definitely had to compensate for this.

- Randolph... could have been kinder to her, especially after the queen died. He couldn’t look Ashlyn in the eyes. She reminded him too much of his late wife.

- Isabella wanted Ashlyn to inherit her belongings and position, but Randolph had his own favorites (I promise I don’t think he was an evil person, but he could have done better).

- I think Ashlyn would identify as bisexual.

- She knew several instruments, but was most attached to the flute. Her most treasured memories involved Isabella giving her flute lessons.

- She was expected to be the mature one all the time, so she repressed a lot of her own frustrations in favor of caring for others.

- She was closest to Blair and Courtney.

- She was a little soft spoken, and one of the most “ladylike”; Ashlyn was one of the sisters who struggled least with Rowena’s lessons.

- The younger sisters had a hard time remembering that she was a person capable of all sorts of feelings. They expected parental behavior from her, and got really confused when she expressed negative emotions.

- Some of the sisters assumed Ashlyn didn’t care for sweets, because she would offer hers to the others whenever they got any. In reality, she thought this was kind behavior. She showed sacrifice in several, seemingly inconsequential, ways.

- Despite seeming so mature, she always felt as if she stopped growing up after her mother passed.

- As the sisters grew up, Ashlyn really struggled with finding her purpose. She didn’t get the power her mother promised her. She put her own ideas and prospects aside to care for her sisters. She ended up floating from kingdom to kingdom, with varying success in several different courts. She eventually came  to live with the other eldest sisters.

- Despite being (in my view) cheated out of her kingdom, Ashlyn seldom expressed frustration or resentment. She adopted the attitude of a retired noble early in life, spending a lot of time on composing music and serene hobbies.

Blair

- horse.... horses..... sleeping in the stables...... with the horses

- I’m kidding! Mostly!

- Blair was bold and opinionated. She also loved witty conversation and comedy.

- What else did she love? Horses.

- She would sneak out all the time to ride.

- Her favorite horse was black and very tall.

- She was closest to Ashlyn and Courtney.

- Blair was sick in childhood.

- Though the older sisters were known for being more refined and elegant, Blair pushed this notion plenty.

- She loved adventure.

- All of the sisters missed the golden pavilion, but Blair struggled with this a lot.

- She didn’t have as many problems with Randolph, but sometimes she would CAUSE problems on purpose (mostly defending Ashlyn and calling out his favoritism).

- She turned her own estate later in life into a close replica of the pavilion. The grounds were massive.

- She was intelligent, but struggled with many academic tasks. If she needed to read something that was challenging, she would often hand it to Courtney for help. She would only have motivation to read if it was about subjects she loved.

- This is ironic, because she later came to be a published writer. I believe these were short works, similar to pamphlets.

- Blair enjoyed throwing and attending large balls and gatherings. She was still chasing the thrill of the magical visits she’d make with her sisters.

- Blair was considered extremely beautiful, and drew admirers wherever she went. She accumulated many pieces of ruby jewelry this way.

- She also liked wearing capes and cloaks.

Courtney

- Generally shy, Courtney made an exception when she stood up for Ashlyn.

- Courtney longed to travel, and books provided her with a form of escapism until she was able to.

- She had a health scare after the events of the movie, and this somehow tarnished her standing in society??

- She wasn’t straight, probably a lesbian.

- She was well read on political matters and the history of their kingdom, and would often be the first one to noticed Randolph’s incompetence in certain areas.

- She was a young teen when she first started rewriting her father’s treaties in her spare time. She learned after the first time not to bring her drafts to him.

- When Ashlyn and Blair left home, she grew closer with Fallon. Both had a streak of wanderlust, and gravitated towards the romantic.

- Courtney published poetry under a pseudonym starting at a young age. This probably helped her somewhat. As she grew up, her poems grew in notoriety, and many debated who their true writer was. A significant portion focused on love between women and feeling trapped.

- I think she had been to Apollonia (Antonio’s kingdom in Island Princess) several times, and knew both Luciana and Antonio from an early age. I think this was the case for many of the older sisters.

- After their mother died, the girls traveled less, and met less new people. Courtney was bothered by this.

- She was generally thought of as calm and quiet, but she felt emotions deeply ( even if she didn’t always express them).

Delia

- Athletic and spunky

- Delia enjoyed more structured sports.

- She was prone to sunburns.

- Delia was enamored with the sun and light. She would hang prisms next to her windows to watch the light refract.

- She was closest with her twin, Edeline. They enjoyed playing croquet together and (though it was usually harmless) gossiping.

- Delia had a temper. She would deal with guilt afterwards if she lashed out at someone.

- Her emotional regulation issues came to light after her mother died.

- Delia dealt with a lot of guilt in general. She didn’t feel as put-together as her older sisters, or as carefree as the younger ones. She felt guilty for not fitting in, and expressed feeling like an inconvenience to those around her.

- Outsiders thought she was dim-witted, and she internalized this.

- Delia often had a problem of interrupting people or speaking loudly, so it was advised that she stay quiet when visitors came. This really hurt her self esteem, since she was always happy to make new friends.

- Rowena had offended her when she was a young girl, and Delia never forgot this.

- Delia liked birds, and hummingbirds fascinated her.

- She had to learn to accept herself later in life. 

- She discovered people who appreciated her for who she was, and finally left her inhibitions behind. 

- After that, she became known for her charisma and charm.

Edeline:

- Edeline shared a lot of interests with her twin, such as sports and outdoor activities.

- She enjoyed making others laugh.

- Once Genevieve married Derek, Edeline took it as her cue to BULLY that poor man.

- Seriously, it probably warded off suitors for her other sisters.

- It was usually in good fun, though.

- Edeline disliked rules and structure.

- She was closest with Delia.

- She often stood up for her twin.

- Edeline had a good ear for gossip, and had her own methods of fact checking stories she’d heard.

- Something happened with her at Genevieve’s wedding?? Maybe she broke something??

- Edeline traveled some, but found her way back home eventually.

- She DESPISED Rowena. None of the sisters liked her, but Edeline couldn’t stand her from the beginning.

- Edeline would have loved to know about the concept of roast humor.

- She liked to have sleepover-like setups in their bedroom. She would build forts and encourage the others to come tell ghost stories. When the memories of her mother came to her, she felt the need to DO something, even if the action wasn’t necessarily related.

- She became known for her humor.

Fallon

- Fallon was pretty much independent, until she and Courtney bonded.

- Fallon always wanted pets, and was jealous that only Genevieve was allowed to have one (besides....bugs and the horses, who were kept outside).

- She would try to befriend wild animals, and nursed some injured animals back to health.

- I don’t think Fallon was straight.

- Fallon was sensitive, and had a hard time dealing with Rowena’s harsh treatment.

- Fallon had nightmares, and would often go to her older sisters for comfort.

- She enjoyed the company of others. She would spend time with servants and other people considered to be below her station.

- Fallon played the harp.

- She loved the softer aspects of life. 

- She devoted time to charitable causes.

- I just know that she did that classic princess trope of posing as a commoner. That’s such a her thing to do.

- She gained a reputation for being eccentrically kind. She had a large family of animals, who she took EXCELLENT care of.

Genevieve

- You may have noticed that the older sisters were generally closer with each other. Well, Genevieve wasn’t, and she made it that way.

- She.... liked to act like she was in charge. She often undermined Ashlyn’s efforts.

- She was Randolph’s favorite.

- Genevieve got along better with the younger sisters, especially Lacey.

- She probably did have leadership skills, but a lot of them came from acting like she did.

- Like I’ve implied above, she got a lot of power after she married, instead of Ashlyn.

- Derek wasn’t a bad person, but he was a COBBLER. How did she get more political power by marrying a COBBLER?

- She butted heads with Blair and Courtney quite often after the events of the movie.

- Basically, she had Main Character Disease dsfghjk

- She traveled less than the other older sisters.

- Admittedly, she wasn’t a poor leader.

- I have a feeling she adopted a lot of children later in life.

- She and Derek had a pretty long transitional period after they married, meaning they spent more time really figuring out who they were as a couple rather than jumping into their duties right away.

- Genevieve kind of symbolized the cutoff for the sisters who had lots of solid memories about their mother and those who didn’t.

- She was one of the best dancers out of the sisters.

- She was brave and self-assured.

- She knew what she wanted, and she would get it.

- After Twyla, she got some other cats. They were mostly orange and/or long haired.

- She never quite shook her habit of being late.

Hadley

- Hadley was closest to their twin, Isla.

- As Hadley grew up, they became more comfortable being gender nonconforming. They may have been trans, but I don’t remember.

- Hadley enjoyed fencing.

- Stilts were Hadley’s first love, and led to appreciation for other daring activities.

- Hadley also loved the ocean. Many of their adventures involved being at sea. They spent years sailing longside their twin on a ship Genevieve gifted them.

- Rumors swirled that they were a pirate. Though these weren’t true, Hadley didn’t mind.

- Hadley was energetic and intuitive.

- Hadley was an athletic risk-taker. They enjoyed acrobatics and other feats of the human body.

- Hadley became known for their adventurous exploits and fencing prowess.

- Though Hadley initially idolized Genevieve, she eventually sided with Ashlyn and the other older sisters once she learned the whole story.

- Hadley stayed with the older sisters after whatever scary thing happened with Courtney.

- Hadley mentored people, and may have been a teacher.

- She really missed the times when all of their sisters got along.

- There were rumors that Hadley was affiliated with darker forces, when in reality Hadley was one of the most well-adjusted.

Isla

- Isla was closest to Hadley.

- Isla liked adventure, but she was less daring than Hadley.

- Isla stayed our of most business involving the older sisters, preferring to spend time with her twin.

- She loved swimming.

- Isla had a collection of maps.

- She was known for being easy going. 

- She sometimes had to bring Hadley down from an idea that seemed too dangerous.

- Isla was the voice of reason in some situations.

- She never lost her passion for dance, and learned new styles through their travels.

- Isla had pet birds.

- She was admired for her grace and acrobatic talent.

- Isla enjoyed circus-like acts.

- She was more bothered by the pirate rumors than Hadley.

- Isla enjoyed researching magic, and trying to find a way back to the magic pavilion. 

- Isla was non-confrontational.

- She tried many forms of artistic expression, from writing to painting.

- Isla was loyal to Hadley, and would be there for her twin no matter what.

Janessa

- Janessa maintained her love of insects.

- Since they were so young when it happened, none of the triplets remember details of the magic pavilion. If their sisters weren’t there to confirm their memories, they would have thought it was a dream.

- Janessa grew up to be very interested in science.

- Janessa found the proper way to care for insects, and took pride in how well she did it.

- She was prone to worrying.

- She often lamented the fact that she was so young when they visited the pavilion.

- Janessa was considered obedient and passive.

- Janessa heard how much she looked like her mother (though not as much as Ashlyn). She had mixed feelings about this, because she couldn’t really remember what her mother looked like.

- Janessa was closest to Kathleen.

- She became close with Edeline and Delia when she got older.

- Janessa knew she wasn’t Randolph’s favorite, and took this personally. She tried, especially in her youth, to gain his approval.

- She also knew that Genevieve preferred Lacey, even though all the triplets looked up to Genevieve.

- Janessa balanced her love for science with her royal duties, and used what power she had to provide exposure and resources to research institutes.

Kathleen

- Kathleen was creative and unconventional.

- She was closest with Janessa, and became close with Isla later in life.

- Kathleen was known for her paintings.

- She started out painting things like landscapes, then moved into less traditional subjects.

- Her royal portraits were renowned in particular. They captured royalty doing activities that were important to them, or in significant fantasy settings.

- She painted portraits of her siblings and father. These became their favorites. She captured: a relaxed Ashlyn writing music, Blair on horseback in mid-air, Courtney in her library, Delia in the sunlight, Edeline in a fantastical outdoor scene, Fallon with her animals, Genevieve dancing, Hadley fencing, Isla swimming, Janessa surrounded by flying insects in the sky, and Lacey at work.

- Though she tried many times, Kathleen was not satisfied with her attempts of painting her mother. She felt like she was simply copying pre-existing portraits.

- The only painting of her mother she was somewhat pleased with was one of Queen Isabella walking away, her back to the viewer as she walked into a golden pavilion.

- Kathleen tried to paint the magic pavilion, and these painting had a fuzzy, dream-like quality.

- Her art gained a significant following.

Lacey

- She was Randolph’s second favorite.

-Lacey was unshakably loyal to Genevieve. She didn’t understand why the older sisters were upset about her being given power and land.

- Lacey struggled with illness as a child. She was inspired by the healing water at the pavilion to study medicine.

- Lacey struggled with muscle strength and coordination well into adulthood.

- Despite this, she continued dancing.

- She looked very similar to Randolph’s relatives.

- She felt the need to defend Genevieve, and would often challenge her older sisters because of this.

- Although Ashlyn never challenged her, Lacey harbored resentment towards her. She blamed Ashlyn for the fact that Genevieve’s approval wasn’t universal.

- Lacey was interested in scientifically based medicine, as well as magical remedies.

- Lacey was always closest with Genevieve, and lived with her for a long time.

- Lacey idolized Genevieve and Derek’s relationship, often heralding it as the pinnacle of romance.

- She searched for a way back to the magical world, believing it contained the key to eternal youth and immortality.

- Lacey didn’t care for travel as much as some of her sisters, but she usually enjoyed when she did leave her own kingdom.

- She grew up to be Genevieve’s closest adviser, and an accomplished healer.

Canon Noncompliant Things

- The sisters left the pavilion by dancing in birth order. Although Derek did leave by dancing with Genevieve, they weren’t responsible for leaving in the first place. Once again, Ashlyn doesn’t get the credit she deserves dfghjk

- Genevieve had an actual wedding, not whatever that was that was shown at the end of the movie. It was smaller than a lot of royal weddings (because Derek didn’t have many connections or people to invite), but it was a serious affair. 

[woahajimes]

Jon Kent had become an excellent liar. 

“We're never finding Damian.” 

That was a lie, although it could also count as truth. They were never finding Damian. 

He was. 

He didn’t have any of this information assured, but he was trusting that it kept real. He had known Damian for at least a year and a half, perhaps even less, but it had felt like forever. It was funny how people changed over time. 

When he met Damian, things were rocky. Jon actually despised Damian, he tried to get away from him. He’d always make excuses for leaving, either with Kathy, or his dad, or Maya, even. Damian had been too cocky, a little far too confident. 

Too sure of himself and his abilities, it made Jon angry. 

It filled him with envy. 

When they were sent to boot camp, Jon realized something. Damian was, sure, older than him, and more mature, and maybe not taller, but he was more skilled than Jon in almost everything he could do. 

Damian was, in a way, just like him. A small way, of course. Nothing big, they weren’t mirror on mirror. Jon hadn’t been raised by a supervillain grandfather, and Damian wasn’t a half-breed between an alien and a human.

That was really the reason that he offered Damian the granola bar. He realized the small chance that they were similar. They were both lost, in different ways, but lost altogether. Jon didn’t actually know if Damian had ever been lost, if Damian even knew that being lost meant. 

Maybe someday he’d find out. 

When Damian slipped into his room, mocked him for going to sleep while the moon was still living, when he dragged him out the window, mocked him once more for not being able to fly, that’s when Jon knew there was something. Something in Damian that made Jon want to stay, just for a while longer. 

When they matched in school, just a few educational years of a difference, nothing much, Jon was psyched. They were already close friends, even though not much had passed since Damian had visited him at night that first time. 

What could he say? They became friends pretty quickly. 

When Kid Amazo destroyed their headquarters, Jon and Damian had become pretty close friends. They were actually joking with each other, and mocking each other and making fun of each other, as friends do. Of course, Jon wouldn’t exactly know this by the palm of his hand, for friends weren’t exactly his area of expertise. 

Yet Damian felt like a friend, like a best friend. 

After all, he had saved him, when Jon was drowning at the bottom of Morrison Bay, given him a rebreather, and swam Jon’s limp, unconscious body for a few minutes, until Jon regained consciousness. 

Saving each other’s lives, they were practically inseparable. 

Their second Summer together came around, the whole gig with the cube of the fortress and the primary colours of Jon. If he was being honest, he really enjoyed that summer, perhaps the best summer in his ten years of life. Jon had always wanted a sibling, and that summer it felt like he had hit the jackpot. He could finally say that Damian was his best friend, at least without getting elbowed in the stomach. The golden kryptonite, Jon took it as a gift, being split in two, it was a portion of something he had wanted for so long: A brother. And even though having somewhat of a twin wasn’t as fun as he had expected, he enjoyed it, for as long as it lasted. 

Jon remembers telling Damian that he’s going to spend time with his grandfather. Jon was spending the night at the manor, he was sitting in front of the TV. 

“Hey, D?” Jon turned from the TV, he looked at Damian. “What are we doing this summer?” 

Damian drifted his eyes from the screen. He looked at Jon. “What do you mean?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Summer is in like two days, dummy.” 

Damian shrugged, his eyes wandering back to the TV. “Nothing much, why?” 

Jon turned back to face the TV. “I think I’m going to go see my grandpa.” 

“Cool.” And that had been that. 

Jon should have told Damian a bit more, maybe then he would have been opposed to Jon leaving. Instead, he had left out minor details from Damian, details Clark had told him when Jon had left, when Jon had already spent a few years in the volcano prison. 

Jon had to admit that his time in the volcano prison had messed him up a bit. He had thought about Damian a lot, more than he’d like to admit. If Jon was around… what? Fifteen? Then Damian would have been around eighteen. It struck him a few days later, just how much he’d missed. Damian would have already left the school, maybe gone to some college for smart super-hero ninjas. Probably forgotten all about him, about the summer of super and the Kid Amazo and all the things that Jon held tight to his chest. He probably forgot about the time they played Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with pillow forts and nerf guns, about the times they ate cotton candy, sitting on the roof of the Carousel in the Hamilton fair. Pairing up for sports, even though they were three years apart in grades. 

Damian had probably forgotten about all that. 

It was really the Hamilton fairs that got to Jon. He used to love those as a kid. He went for the first time when he was nine, second time ten, third time eleven. The second time he went, it had been Jon’s first year since meeting Damian.

Damian couldn’t go for some mission with Batman, but Jon had met up with Kathy, He told her all about his adventures with Damian. She kept quiet, mostly because Jon wouldn’t be. It was pretty insane to think that this had all been in the same year, Jon meeting Damian, Jon moving away from Hamilton, to a private school, creating a public figure alongside Damian: the Super Sons. Nearly drowning in Morrison Bay, his mom almost killed, it was a bit too much for the mind of a 10-year-old.

Yet Jon got to the part in which he called Damian his best friend, and Kathy spoke up.

“Jon,” She stopped what she was doing and she met eyes with him. “What is it you even like about Damian?”

The question had caught him off-guard. “I- He’s kinda nice someti-”

“No,” Kathy interrupted him. “Not really, no. He’s not that nice at all.”

Jon kept quiet. He shrugged it off with a simple “I guess so,” and the night kept moving. He returned home, but Kathy’s question rung in his ears.

“What is it you even like about Damian?”

Jon sat on the office chair in his room, a marker on his hand. He stared blankly at the 9x9 whiteboard in front of him. He uncapped the marker and wrote down Damian’s name. 

He’s funny sometimes, Jon thought to himself. When he’s not being mean. He decided to write that down. 

He’s really smart, too. Jon wrote that down as well. 

He wrote down a few more things, all jots, and he reminded himself of the paper he had written for school not long ago. He took out his backpack, his binder, carefully opened the rings and slid out his paper. He started skimming it. 

“ ‘If I had to describe Damian in one word, it would be dependable,’ Jeez,’ Jon whispered into the room. “What was going on in my head?” 

He kept reading. “ ‘No matter what, when the chips are down, he always takes care of me.’” Yeah, that part was true. 

He read the last part in his head. I know I can trust him no matter what kinda trouble we find ourselves in.

Jon capped the marker, he deleted everything he had written on the whiteboard. He didn’t need a list for all the things he liked about Damian. He knew already, Damian was his best friend, no questions needed. 

Jon had done and said things he wasn’t proud of. He for one, developed new habits, bad habits. He wanted to pin an excuse on them, that it wasn’t his fault that he had developed such habits. It was just his reaction to being put in situations like that. Example taken, Jon had started to talk to himself. He wasn’t exactly sure if it was a habit or a sign that he was going insane, but he didn’t like it altogether. Remembering it was torture, it was a habit he started in the volcano prison. 

Jon clearly remembers that the first time he talked to himself, to Damian. When exactly, he wasn’t sure, but Jon had a hard time getting used to the lack of things, in this case, a small daily occurrence he shared with Damian. 

Their shared habit started in their first sleepover, it had rooted from something they were watching on the TV. The woman on the screen was putting her kids to sleep, and she asked her youngest boy, “What was your favourite part of the day?”, to which the boy answered “spending time with you, mom.” 

Damian snorted. “Let’s  watch something else.”

Jon whipped his head around and looked at Damian. “Let’s pick a movie.” His eyes beamed, he was grinning. 

They had picked out a movie they never got tired of rewatching: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. They had turned off the movie early, Alfred coming in and telling them to get ready to sleep. 

Each in their perspective beds, both had been quiet for a while, until Damian spoke up. He pitched his voice, and said, “What was your favourite part of the day?” Mimicking the woman. 

Jon snickered. “Spending time with you, Dami.” He pronounced the new nickname like ‘Day-me’, and heard Damian make a vomiting sound. 

“Don’t you dare call me that,” Damian sat up, and Jon did as well. “I will end you, Kent.”

Jon waved his hand, he could make out Damian’s expression even with the lights turned off. “Pfft, what about Dami?” He pronounced it like ‘D-ah-me’. 

Damian’s expression softened. “Mother used to call me that,” he said. “She wasn’t very fond of nicknames, but I guess she liked that one.”

Jon felt heat rising to his cheeks. He hadn’t meant to touch a sore subject. He knew there was a complicated relationship with Damian and his mom. “I think I’ll just stick with ‘D’.” he said quickly. 

Damian laid back down on his bed, he turned away from Jon. “No, it’s fine. Whatever helps you sleep at night, J.” 

Jon still sat on the bed, he arranged his pillow. “D?”

“Yeah?”

“‘Hukka’” 

Jon could have sworn Damian smiled, just a little. “‘Hukka’, Jon.”

It was embarrassing to sorts, Jon had to admit. Whispering ‘Hukka’ to himself at night, swearing that he could see Damian if he just squinted a little bit. Asking Damian how his day went, swearing that he could almost hear an answer, the things you did for lost best friends. 

Jon had also thought about Damian, yet in more ways than those. Sometimes he wondered if Damian still wore turtlenecks, if he had made any new friends. What if he had gotten a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend? Worse, what if Damian had found a new best friend? A new super-hero partner, someone that didn’t leak tears when they watched movies like Coraline. Someone more like Damian, like a… super-smart ninja assassin. 

When Jon finally spotted earth, a late teen, he started thinking about everything that could have been. Perhaps if Jon hadn’t left, him and Damian would have been having ice cream and maybe getting their own statue as the super sons. Maybe they’d have moved past the Super sons. 

Jon wondered where Damian was now. Maybe he was Batman, although Jon secretly wished that he wasn’t. He had always thought that Batman was cool, but it wasn’t really Damian. Batman was in a way, everything that Damian wasn’t. But if Damian wanted to be Batman, then Jon really didn’t see why not. Could Jon be the Superman to his Batman? Maybe? 

It took him as an overall surprise, realizing that only three weeks had passed. It made hope linger in his stomach, a fluttery feeling. Maybe he hadn’t missed so much after all. 

But Damian had stared at him like a stranger, like he used to stare at the boys at school. It made Jon’s heart stop beating, just for a few moments. He wanted to cry on Damian’s shoulder, even if Damian had only aged three weeks. Damian had rejected him, and that hurt more than Jon could have expected. Damian had collected himself, after a short time, and they spent the night together. Then, before Damian left, he hugged Jon, tightly. Maybe Damian was also feeling what Jon was. 

Maybe his letter proved that. Maybe the letter was Damian’s way of expressing everything that he felt for Jon. 

So Jon set out to find Damian, to ask him about the letter. To finally explain to him everything he wanted to say. 

[dancedance-resolution]

Why Batwoman 2x01 was so good:

1. The writers managed to strike a great balance between paying respect to Kate Kane and introducing Ryan. Kate Kane as a character is, of course, significant to DC. She’s an important source of representation as a Jewish lesbian, and she has a large legacy/mythos within the larger DC Comics history. Batwoman first showed respect to Kate as a character by wisely chosing to not kill her off. Next, there’s one scene where Ryan is reading up on Kate, developing new understanding and respect in the process, and every few seconds the camera cuts over to where Mary and Luke are reading up on Ryan, similarly gaining understanding and respect for Ryan. I think this scene effectively facilitate the batsuit’s—as a mantle, as a symbol, and as a mythos—being passed on to Ryan. It paid a large amount of respect to Kate as a character, pointing out some of the most significant aspects of her character, and sort of drew Ryan into Kate’s mythos as Batwoman in a way that helps facilitate her becoming Batwoman - she comes to learn and respect the history and the gravity of Batwoman as a person, as an entity, as a figure of justice, and as an icon; and as a result, she can now carry on that legacy and expand it, using it to bring even more good to the world.

But even before she learned about Kate, Ryan respected her. When Ryan first met Mary and Luke, she offers genuine condolences for their loss. She doesn’t disrespect them or make light of their grief. Even though these two people are strangers,

In the process of paying due respect to Kate, however, Batwoman did not minimize Ryan or treat her as “second” to Kate. Ryan got a significant amount of screentime and focus—as she should���and her time on screen was all truly meaningful. We’ve begun to see her backstory, see who she is as a person, and see what that will mean for her as Batwoman.

2. Ryan is a lovable character, and Javicia did an excellent job portraying her. I love Ryan a lot, guys. She’s passionate, earnest, and driven. She’s down-to-earth and has a strong sense of justice that leads her through life. And at the same time, she’s a charming dork - the type of charming dork who yells “I’m bulletproof, bitches!” after dangling helplessly from the sky by a grappling hook. I, obviously, fucking love her for it.

I also think that the writers did a great job of keeping the vibe of season 1 to a good extent. The way Ryan was introduced felt like a proper introduction considering what we know about this show’s Gotham and considering how things were done in season 1. It worked well. Additionally, it is not lost on me how meaningful it is that from Ryan’s very first scene, we see that her instinct is to selflessly help victims to the best of her ability, and it is because she went out to help them that she stumbled upon the Batsuit. Furthermore, in that scene where she does discover the suit, the flashbacks establish that this moment in meaningful beyond just this one moment of time - it has connection to Ryan’s history and motivations for becoming Batwoman. During the DC Fandome this past summer, Caroline Dries said this season would deal with destiny. I think that that first scene was a great way to introduce it as a concept without taking away any of the sense that Ryan truly deserves this mantle as well. (One last side note - the use of music and sound effects in that first scene was excellent.)

While the writers certainly deserve a good bit of credit for creating this amazing character from scratch, I think Javicia also deserves a lot of credit here - she did an absolutely stunning job as Ryan. The charm I saw in Ryan was very similar to the goofy charm she brought to Ali in God Friended Me (which I loved, by the way), and those lighter scenes were played with the same adeptness as the dark, intense, and gutwrenchingly emotional scenes.

3. Batwoman acknowledged Alice’s grief and trauma in a way that also gave viewers some closure regarding season 1 matters. I think that Alice’s grief process was written pretty well considering her already existing trauma. And that succinct summary of Alice’s plan to get her dad to kill Kate was pretty clever on the writer’s part, as it gave us some closure regarding season 1’s goings on that were interrupted by COVID (and that were unable to be seen to completion since Kate Kane is no longer Batwoman).

4. The episode had many powerful moments. Some quotes that really struck me:

“You make it sound like these are all my choices...You wanna know why I haven’t paid my fines? Because I can’t find a job. Because I don’t have a home. Because no land lord wants to rent to an ex-con on post-release. You see how this works? No one cares that the dope wasn’t mine or that the Crows were dirty. Or that I’m actually a decent human. I am a file in your cabinet. That is not having power. That is thr very definition of powerless.” This line is made all the more powerful by the fact that Ryan’s first words upon donning the Batsuit are “Time to be powerful.”

“Trust me, I know I’m not a symbol, or a name, or a legacy...I am a number. I am the 327th baby of a Black woman who died of childbirth that year. I am a twenty-dollar-a-day check to a group home. I’m Inmate 4075 serving eighteen months for a crime I didn’t commit. But I can live with all those numbers because the mama who adopted me? I was her number one. But it turns out she’s just one of a quarter million murders in this country who have not seen justice. And that is a number I can’t live with.”

“I’m bulletproof, bitches!”

5. Batwoman has a truly excellent supporting cast. I know that a significant portion of the Batwoman fandom has been in love with Mary, Luke, and Alice since day one. One common fear within the fandom was that season 2 would feel like a completely different show, but at least in this episode, that wasn’t the case. The supporting characters were all prominently featured and given a good amount of emotional depth to cover - and seeing their journey helped the show feel familiar and helped carry us viewers over into this new era of Batwoman. And because the transition from Kate to Ryan was so well done, as I discussed in point 1, I didn’t feel like there was any absence or lacking in the show.

6. They did a great job carrying over that Kryptonite storyline from last season. In fact, it makes a lot more sense to me now. I was admittedly a bit confused by the whole Kryptonite storyline last season (it felt a bit like a mere device to facilitate Kate’s relationship with Kara - which, hey, I’m not complaining; I loved that friendship and think they should have hooked up once). Perhaps it was confusing since COVID cut it short. But whatever the reason, I’m glad that I now understand the deeper purpose behind this Kryptonite storyline. And, wow, this has the potential to be super cool and interesting!

7. They called out the Crows in a meaningful way. I think I’m not the only person who is a bit uncomfortable with the Crows in both concept and practice (yes, I do understand that they’re based on the comics, though). So I really appreciated—and found it super powerful—that it was Ryan who delivered the line “The Crows were dirty.” Sometimes I get confused as to whether Batwoman is portraying the Crows as good or bad, so lines like that give me comfort in knowing that the show at the very least acknowledges the problematic nature of an overmilitarized private police force that has been contracted out to have dominion over a city whose population includes a significant amount of low income people.

8. Bonus: They did good by the shippers. Batmoore shippers got some closure by observing Sophie’s grief process and hearing the letter Kate left her. Pennymoore shippers are certainly getting emotional and significant content for their ship. And for clowns like me, the show introduced a great new ship, Mary/Ryan, that I adore even though I know it won’t be canoning, lol.

[dl-oblivion]

What would S boys be like if they had good father and mother figures?

Considering both nature, and nurture play into ones personality development, that’s hard to say. I believe they’d be drastically different, as all suffer with severe childhood trauma that shaped them into who they are in the series. Some core aspects of their personalities would be kept though. I’m gonna break down their childhoods, and how I think they’d grow up if things were different. This is gonna be my first analysis so I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

⚠️TW for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse⚠️

Shu - As a child, Shu was constantly pressured as the eldest son to surpass his father. For hundreds of years he would have to study, and barely got anytime to be a kid. When he did, it was always on his own merit. Running away, and seeking out his best friend Edgar, was how he got away from it all. (At least for a very brief portion of his life.) One thing after another, the things that brought him joy were stripped from him, including Edgar. Feeling trapped, he eventually stopped caring all together, and burnt out. His lazy persona was formed from depression, and trauma. That being said, his sluggish attitude, is the only aspect of his personality I can really see changing. Maybe the vampire would be less sadistic too? That’s hard to say, but perhaps if he continued making human friends, he wouldn’t look down on them so much. Having good parents as a vampire might mean that they belittle humans even more so who knows. His quiet nature would remain, but he wouldn’t be shy by any means. I think his “cool” personality is just how he is. His perverted side would also still be present. It’s worth noting that he’s the only brother who hates his parents, but doesn’t hold any kind of grudge. (Subaru doesn’t hate his mom, but would kill his father if the opportunity was available.)

Reiji - Reijis childhood was the complete opposite of his older brother. Instead of being hyper focused on, he was neglected. No matter what he did, nobody seemed to care for his achievements. The reason why Reiji is the most intelligent out of all his siblings, is because he never stopped trying to get attention by proving his capabilities. Even when he did get praised, it was in the form of backhanded compliments “You will make an excellent right hand man to your brother once he becomes king”. That inferiority complex of his, and hatred for his mother/older brother, would have never been there if he had good parents. Being raised in a loving home, I believe the good aspects of his personality would be cranked up, as opposed to the bad. He’d still be the most intelligent, but out of curiosity, and the need to learn more than anything. His ego would still be present a bit, especially when it comes to humans, but perhaps he’d be more snarky than sadistic? I can also see him being less strict, and more charming towards people. The character would be a little empathetic towards others, and not as detached from his family. Getting along with his brother would be in a playful competitive sense. I also lowkey see him being a mamas boy.

Ayato - Ayato has a similar upbringing to Shu, except his mother was extremely unstable, and downright cruel. Unlike the other two mothers, Cordelia didn’t care for her sons at all. He was a victim to beatings, and torment (I’m sure we all know the story of him being drowned in a lake). Ayato also witnessed Cordelias fits/breakdowns, (which often resulted in maids being killed before his very eyes) as well as her love affairs. The reason why she showed even a shred of regard for Ayato, was because he was the oldest of the triplets. The vampire was praised for things that made his mother look good, and proved he was the “best”. One of the ways narcissists are formed is from parental neglect, and only being praised when they do something worthy of acknowledgement. Which is why his whole character revolves around his need to be the best. If the vampire was raised by good parents, his egotism wouldn’t be present at all. He’d be a way more lighthearted character, and probably just a big loud dork. I’m sure he’d still be a jerk to some extent, but in a misfit kind of a sense. He seems playful at heart, and stubborn in nature. Perhaps he’d be a bit of a heart breaker amongst ladies, or absolutely terrible at picking up chicks. I wholeheartedly believe his personality was mostly formed via “nurture”, but if he wasn’t as strong of a character emotionally, would he have made it out the same?

Laito - Laitos upbringing is different from that of his brothers. While he was neglected, and traumatized from witnessing things no kid should have, the abuse he went through didn’t occur until he was a teenager. At a certain age (unclear), Cordelia began abusing him sexually, and warped his viewpoint on love. His only purpose was to please her sexually, which completely fucked him up. While he always knew it was wrong, Laito was manipulated into believing that he loved his mother as a partner. When Karl Heinz found out, he locked Laito in a dungeon as punishment. Nobody was there to comfort, or acknowledge him as a victim. Instead, Cordelia had sex in front of Laito, and told her son that he was nothing more than a play toy. He continued the cycle of abuse once the incestuous relationship ended. His whole persona is fake, it’s a means to bury all his trauma deep down. With all that being said, Laito would be an entirely different person if he was raised by loving parents. Instead of being this abusive asshole, he’d be a more soft spoken, chill, and nice person. Maybe a little flirtatious, but unintentionally so. I highly doubt he’d be nearly as sadistic, or brutal when it comes to humans, as he didn’t even enjoy taking advantage of his first victim, Hilde (a maid). His hobbies might also be a focus for him, as he wouldn’t be constantly trying to fill up his time by preying on people. Perhaps being a legendary pianist? He’d definitely be closer to his brothers as well, and give them advice more often. His perceptive, and sharp people reading skills would still be there.

Kanato - Kanato has always been needy, and attention seeking. Instead of trying to get his mothers attention by proving his capabilities, he would often times beg for it, or hurt himself. Most of his childhood was spent being neglected. Even if he sustained really bad injuries, Cordelia would ignore him, or request one of the servants take care of it. She disregarded him, until it was discovered that he could sing. His mother was turned on by his voice, and requested that Kanato sing while she was having intercourse. Since he was exposed to sex at a young age, his view on lust/love is very warped, just like Laito. Not nearly as much, but he believes forcing himself onto others is normal. Women are lustful creatures who always want it, in his eyes. (This explains why he forces himself onto Yui the most out of all his brothers.) Cordelia would also order Kanato to dispose of her affairs once she was bored, or if they caused trouble. His mother approved of him turning them into dolls, which is why he continued doing it for hundreds of years. If he had a normal upbringing, Kanato wouldn’t be as broken, and deranged as he is. His mood swings, and extremely sadistic nature wouldn’t be there. I believe he’d be quite timid, and a bit bratty if raised with good parents. He’d throw tantrums sometimes if he didn’t get what he wanted, but not have full blown episodes. I think he also wouldn’t hate women, and humans nearly as much as he does. Kanato is a sensitive person at heart who needs love.

Subaru - Subaru had a lonely, and isolated childhood. He did experience brief moments of tenderly love from his mother, but it was usually followed by Christa breaking down, and screaming at him. His low self esteem is rooted in his mother calling him a monster his entire life. Because Christa was locked away, dealing with her own mental deterioration, Subaru looked after himself. Never did he get validation or approval from anybody. With no siblings to turn to, or father to look to for guidance, he became extremely destructive. Taking his anger out on objects was the only way he could remain sane with a sickly mother. I’m sure there’s been instances where he punched, or beat, brides/servants, as sad as that is to say. I wouldn’t doubt it, since he has said he’s blind during moments or rage, and can easily hurt others if they’re around him when he’s like this. If Subaru had even one good parental figure he’d be different. He’d still be sadistic, but able to control his anger/emotions way better. His horrible self image wouldn’t be there either, and maybe he’d take pride in himself more. I think he’d also pick up hobbies, or be involved in sports, as opposed to being a delinquent. It said in his part of the anniversary book that he actually enjoys exercising, and likes his body sometimes, because he works out. Without a doubt he’d still be an awkward goof, and a tsundere at times. Probably known around the school for having cute reactions as opposed to being scary.

Whew that was long, if you read even a sliver of that Ily (っ◔︣◡◔᷅)っ ❤

[halfpint55]

A Defence of Kataang with regards to how they are portrayed in TLoK (it’s long but there’s headcanons at the end)

Note: This is not about shipping wars. This is a safe zone. This is not about Zutara vs Kataang. This is me defending Kataang and the characters themselves...from the writers. 

I initially wrote this as a response to a post that got me heated. My reblog just made it too long so here it is as its own post. 

Now this post ripped apart Kataang as a couple but more than that said some stuff about Aang himself that hurt my heart. I didn’t really want to pick on this post but its condemning of Kataang was based almost entirely in what we know of them as parents in TLoK and honestly it’s that lil nugget of canon that I take issue with. It has bothered me from the get go because it doesn’t make sense from a writing and story perspective, and it’s been pissing me off since I watched it.

TL;DR nice and early bc this post is gonna be a long one:

This particular condemnation of Kataang rests almost entirely on the SHITTY way they were portrayed as parents by the writers of LoK, and in all honesty, on this particular topic, canon should be ignored.

Overall Kataang parenting is of my biggest gripes with LoK because in terms of writing it’s totally incongruous - it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t align, and it makes zero sense for what we know of those characters, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive the showrunners for allowing it to be written it into canon.

I will also preface this by saying I like LoK - love it. I had a scroll through the comments and reblogs on this post, and a lot of the hate towards this portrayal of Kataang ended up being blamed on the “terrible writing of LoK” which is not where I stand at all. That being said I am so angry at the writers for this one.

The other portion of the concurring comments that were very hateful towards Kataang came from Zutara shippers and honestly for me, although I do ship Kataang, this not a just a Kataang issue. I’m of the belief that Zutara would’ve just as easily been written to have similar issues due to very similar dynamics - Zutara also would have been two powerful benders from very different cultures, and with Zuko/Aang (whoever you ship w her) having a massively important global leadership role that is embedded in who they are, and therefore impossible to ignore as a factor in their relationship.

Now let me be clear, my desire to reject canon on this front is by no means me wanting to believe the best of my faves, and not wanting to hear a word against Aang. It’s not even necessarily a defence of Kataang bc I ship it that hard (I mean I do but I can set that aside for the sake of argument if that’s what you need from me here). 

The first, and main issue people have with Aang/Kataang in Korra, is the first point of the original post:

So why in hell would [Katara] be okay with Aang ignoring TWO of their children’s complete existence once he found out they had an airbending son?

And I agree with the post on this front; Katara would not have allowed her children to each be treated differently by their father. I had the same initial thought when watching LoK, and it’s the reason I hate and want to ignore the canon of LoK so badly. 

As much as it hurts to think of, we have to accept that Aang wouldn’t have been able to stop his preferential treatment for Tenzin from bleeding through into his parenting just out of a desperate desire to save his culture (which is absolutely understandable - doesn’t make it okay, but it’s understandable; Aang suffered an incredible loss, a massive cultural trauma which he alone carries the burden of). So of course he wasn’t able to hide how excited he was, and forgot to be mindful of his attitude and behaviour towards Kya and Bumi. So this aspect of canon Kataang? Yeah, I’m with it. So far so good. EXCEPT the most unrealistic element of canon is now that Katara would let him. I simply do not believe for a second that Katara would’ve allowed Aang to be the kind of parent LoK painted him to be.

However, I do not think it would’ve been a point of contention between the two of them! Katara would pull him aside, Katara would gently (but firmly) point out what Aang mightn’t be able to see for himself - he’s focusing too hard on Tenzin.

And Aang would listen.

All throughout A;tLA the two of them often help the other sort through their stuff. Aang has a great track record of being receptive to Katara’s advice and help (calming him down when discovering Monk Gyatso’s body, The Desert when he Appa is stolen, Serpent’s Pass when he’s bottling his feelings about Appa being missing). He’s also just so receptive to others’ ideas - he just goes with it and trusts in his friends (think of his trust in Katara’s plan to rescue Haru, his trust in staying behind with Sokka in the library to get the eclipse info). Aang’s humility is one of the most incredible things about him and it’s at the core of who he is. He would absolutely be able to hear Katara telling him he’s focusing too hard on one child - he would be open, and he’d listen.

So to me now canon just does not make sense at all. it does not align with their established character traits. And yes, people change as they get older and grow into adulthood but honestly, the elements of their respective personalities that we’re talking about here are pretty core elements of who these two people are.

Katara has always been fiercely protective of those she loves, strongwilled, stubborn, and ready to (vocally or physically) fight for what she believes is right and that wouldn’t disappear as she gets older. She wouldn’t let Aang’s preferrential treatment slide.

Aang has always been, and chose to be despite his loss, an optimistic, kind, believe in the best of humanity kind of person. He’s open to all points of view, he’s a good listener, he always tries his absolute best to find solutions that are good for everyone. And again his humility, his willingness to love, is who he is.  He believes all humans (including fkn OZAI) and all life are sacred, he believes in the absolute right to life. The kid is a vegetarian for crying out loud.

Now the parts of the take in the post that hurt my heart to read about what OP thinks of Aang:

“Aang never made an attempt to establish anything resembling a real familial unit with Katara, basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender [...] she was treated like some trophy wife to give birth to airbenders and that’s it!”

I wasn’t going to address this in this post until I read the comments in the notes, because people seem to agree. They share the sentiment that Katara was reduced to “just a love interest” by the two ending up together.

However I do very much take issue w the notion that Aang “basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender” (and honestly that entire paragraph - we don’t actually know that Aang didn’t make an effort to establish a family unit). As much as the LoK writers fucked up in their portrayal of Kataang as parents, this is a much harsher judgement of Aang’s character as a husband and father than anything implied by Aang and Katara’s children. I just don’t buy that Aang would view Katara (or anyone he married, even if you don’t ship Kataang) as a trophy wife, whose only role is to have airbender children. He never has viewed her that way - he has always looked at her like she’s the sun, and the most important person to him after she pulled him out of the iceburg. He loves her the most of anyone on the planet. It does not align with his character, his values or beliefs that he’d think of her (or any partner) that way. He is so besotted with Katara for who she is it HURT me to read that part of your take. Aang simply would never. Look at how he looks at her! 

What’s more is the unwavering respect and deference he shows Katara as his waterbending master - he recognises and loves her as the whole, complete, three dimensional, TALENTED POWERFUL INCREDIBLE WOMAN that she is. She is NEVER “just” a love interest for Aang. (But ALSO, do we respect Suki any less for being Sokka’s obvious love interest??? No. suki is written to be so badass that Sokka is HER love interest and I think Katara has equally badass energy but I digress).

Moving on!

OP made an excellent point that there would’ve been culturally different values between the two but I don’t think it would’ve been family that was the clashing point. Yes the airbenders value spirituality and enlightenment. But they lived together in massive communities! They supported and raised one another. Their community and culture was strong, and they were bonded in their spirituality! They value love, as well as enlightenment, peace, and the lives of all.

Now, again the points they made about the cultural divides within the Kataang family unit are valid, but also again I dislike how they chose to portray this in LoK. It would definitely be a struggle they faced as a couple. However I think they really missed an opportunity here with where they took it. Because they do at one point in the comics have Katara bring up the fact that their family will be a blend of two cultures, and she brings it up because Aang is trying so hard to bring balance back to the world by means of seperation.

They’ve known from the get go of being a couple that they’re going to have to navigate being a culturally blended family unit.

So I find it so shitty that they wrote it so that Kya got to learn the waterbending culture, Tenzin got Air and bumi got…nothing? It’s dangerously close to the way Disney does the “the girls are carbon copies of mum, and the boys are carbon copies of dad” thing (think Lady and the Tramp). It’s lazy. Especially when we had that “separation is an illusion” episode, AND things like Zuko learning different nation’s styles and applying them to his firebending, and Sokka learning an element of strategy or fighting from every nation. 

So give us Kya using Airbending moves with her waterbending (maybe she invents the water scooter)! Give us Tenzin doing more grounded moves that Aunty Toph (or Lin, while they were together) taught him from earthbending.

There are much more creative ways to illustrate the bumps and troubles Kataang might have run into in trying to navigate incorporating equal parts of their cultures in their children and family unit. Even just smaller scale issues like food and meals - how do they figure out how to do mealstimes with Aang’s vegetarianism with Katara’s culturally significant Water Tribe meat dishes? And then even taking into account how picky little kids can be!

Give me a scene where they literally just ate moon pies for a week because toddler Kya would scream if you put anything else down in front of her.

Maybe Bumi demanded sea prunes over and over but Katara and Bumi are the only ones who like them, and Bumi bonds with his mother this way - they go on little one-on-one outings to water tribe restaurants in Republic City, searching for the most authentic sea prunes!

Kya maybe likes the water tribe fashions the most because it helps her connect with her namesake BUT Kya also has a playful sense of humour - not unlike Monk Gyatso - Aang sees how much she loved moon pies and teaches her to throw them with waterbending.

We know Tenzin was a calm, quiet, and possibly shy child. Maybe he loved to hole himself away learning crafts. Give me Tenzin learning to tattoo, Tenzin learning to carve (and carving his first glider - it crashes of course), but also Tenzin learning to carve water tribe adornments and necklaces. Katara tries at first but when she gets busy Sokka comes in and teaches Tenzin to break all the carving rules Katara has laid down (”it doesn’t need to be perfect my little pupil - let the creativity flow!”)

Tenzin may not be able to waterbend but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn other means of healing. As the littlest he spent a lot of time watching Katara work - she teaches him to tie splints, dress wounds, and yes deliver babies.

If you made it here I love you so much for reading. I love sharing my thoughts so HIGH FIVE YOU MADE IT, ur now my friend - the friendship is non-refundable sorry 😌😌

[astralsweetness]

Set my soul on fire (make me wild) || Hui/Reader (M)

➣ I was originally going to write a LOT more smut (I had so much planned that I never got to!!! ugh).. Maybe I’ll have to do a part 2 or something 👀 the amount of time i spent looking at pics of his studio just so that one scene would be accurate is insane Title from the song ‘Queen of Disaster’. Very briefly proof-read, so please feel free to inform me of typos!

➣ Hui/Reader | Hui drunkenly kisses the reader without explicit consent but owns up to it bcs I’m tired of every other fic that includes this trope just glossing over it | Smut warnings include: masturbation, fingering, hair-pulling (implied), biting (mostly implied), oral + snowballing, slight pain/masochism (implied), some humiliation/degradation + some praise, referenced submissive headspace, and all of them apply to Hui lmao. Also it’s mentioned that Hui isn’t strictly heterosexual and if that bothers you then idk what to tell you

➣ “He is hanging off your every word and you suddenly feel like you have a choice to make - it’s one you don’t think about for more than a second, because you realize that you don’t need to.”

Hui knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you had completely ruined his life just by existing in it.

It wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. The feeling he got whenever you smiled at him, for example, was definitely not a bad thing. The way his skin tingled whenever you brushed against him was.. bothersome, but not a bad thing. The way his heart sped up and beat almost painfully hard whenever he indulged in his regular skinship with you wasn’t particularly bad, but he’d stopped doing that recently just as a preservation strategy so he didn’t die in the next year from a heart attack. (He was a naturally touchy person, and he wasn’t completely sure how he felt at having to stop that with you specifically.)

The way his mind constantly drifted to thoughts of you was starting to become an issue though, as was how he tensed up whenever you got even moderately close to him. You’d started to notice, and he had no idea how to tell you that it was happening because of that one time the rest of the boys had ‘accidentally’ forced the two of you to be pressed against one another in an elevator, and that just the knowledge that your breasts were pressing against his arm had him fighting to not get hard like some sort of teenager. He wasn’t totally sure how successful he’d be the next time if something similar happened.

Still, you were, as far as he was concerned, completely unattainable, and that in itself was a problem. He’d experienced his fair share of heartaches and heartbreaks before, but this was.. different. At least in those circumstances he’d gotten a definitive answer.

With you though, he couldn’t even bring himself to ask, had resigned himself to pining over you like a kid with a crush.

If you hadn’t ruined his life then you sure as hell had made it harder.

.｡..｡.

When Hui gets a knock on his studio door around six pm he’s not particularly surprised – lately his members had taken to dropping in to make sure he had eaten something that day. (Usually he had not.)

He is surprised to see you standing alongside Yuto when he opens the door, so he glances at the maknae suspiciously – Yuto seems perfectly innocent, but Hui wasn’t exactly sure how much of that was an act.

“Hyung, did you eat today?” The younger boy holds up a bag as an offering – it doesn’t look like the regular convenience store food the boys would usually grab for him, so Hui accepts it hesitantly.

“I was originally just going to bring food for Hyunggu, since he was apparently starving in his studio or something, but then he mentioned that you never ate either, so..” You’re looking at him like you’re vaguely disappointed, and it makes a funny feeling tighten in his chest so he pretends to be completely absorbed with looking through the bag. He’s not sure where you got the food from, but it was mostly stuff that he actually liked. “I went to a place Hyunggu wanted, but he told me what he thought you’d like from there – I hope he was right.”

“This – you didn’t have to do this.” It’s nice not being the one buying things for once, he has to admit that to himself, but he still felt a bit bad that you’d felt the need to bring him anything at all. “Thank you, though.”

“You’re right, I didn’t have to. I wanted to – just like I wanted to bring Yuto food too when Hyunggu told me he was also here.” You’ve perched on the edge of his small leather couch and he wonders if you’d ever been in here before – he honestly can’t remember, though with how hyper-aware he was of you it was pretty safe to assume you hadn’t been. Yuto’s lingering near the door quietly, watching you and he interact, and he feels like the younger is analyzing what was happening.

“Thank you for it – I should go eat it now, while it’s still warm.” Yuto’s gentle bass of a voice is almost soothing, but Hui shoots him a look anyway because he suddenly knew what was happening. His maknaes were downright masterminds when it came to plans like this, and he can’t think of any way to get Yuto to stay before you bid him a cheerful goodbye as the Japanese boy smiles at the both of you as he carefully closes the door.

“Should I go too? I don’t want to distract you or be a bother or anything.” Your question is so sincere that he just looks at you for a few moments, tries to figure out a way to say ‘Yes, you do distract me and bother me, but definitely not in the way you’re thinking’. He finally settles on a single head shake, clearing a small portion of one of his desks to place the food on.

“Did you already eat?”

“No, but I’m fine.” Your answer is quiet, and he glances over to see you gazing around his studio – he feels vaguely embarrassed, though he’s not particularly sure why. His studio is remarkably small, it’s true, but he’s not actually ashamed of anything in it.

“You’ve never been in here before?” He’s pretty sure you haven’t, but there’s no harm in confirming it. You’d been focused intently on reading the names on his soccer jerseys, but once he speaks you turn all that intense concentration on to him and his mouth goes dry.

“Nope. Not that I remember, anyway, and I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.” You’re smiling at him and he doesn’t know why that’s something you’d remember, but your smile makes him not really care about the particulars. “Now eat, Hui.”

He raises his eyebrows at the parental tone you’ve adopted but says nothing, knowing there was no way he could get out of it now – and honestly, he didn’t really want to. He was really fucking hungry, and the meat you’d brought him smelled delicious.

It’s only as he’s taking his first bite (which is excellent by the way, Hyunggu apparently had a very good taste in restaurants) that he remembers what you said about not eating and makes a stupid split-second decision. (He’s never been one to think about things like this too much before blindly doing them, which was probably a problem, come to think of it.)

“Here –“ He holds the strip of bulgogi out towards you, one hand underneath, the sound of his heartbeat a constant background theme song. “Say ‘ah’~” And it’s so easy to pretend, to act like he’s just being friendly, to tinge everything he says with a bit of aegyo – you roll your eyes at him but accept the food anyway.

It’s not easy to ignore the intimacy of an act like this, to ignore the way he’s hit with a sudden yearning deep in his chest to be able to feed you food whenever, like a real significant other could.

“Thank you, but no more! This food is for you.”

“Okay, okay.”

The silence that slips back afterwards is mostly comfortable – you seem determined to make sure he eats, so while he does so you go back to gazing around his studio. Hui feels like there really wasn’t that much to look at, but you hadn’t looked bored yet, taking in the contents of his desk and then computer monitor. He realizes belatedly that he still had the windows open for some of their unreleased tracks, but when he glances at you again you’ve already moved on from them, so he leaves them where they are.

“Are you still seeing that one guy?” It’s easy conversation, light and carefree even if the topic makes him feel a bit bitter – as much as the knowledge of you seeing other people ate away at him he knows it would bother him more if you didn’t feel comfortable talking with him about it at all. Being able to be a close friend you confided in was something he cared more about than not feeling jealous.

“Oh – no, I’m not.” Your tone is carefully disinterested, but he can see through it well enough by now. Still, he doesn’t say anything, just turns so he’s fully facing you, focused and listening. “We just had a – confliction of interests I guess you could say.” You laugh softly at your wording and he laughs too, even if he doesn’t totally understand what you mean.

“And that means, what, exactly?”

“He thought women should be submissive during sex, and I disagreed.” ..Oh. Hui’s gaze darts away as he tries to process that – it wasn’t that you talking about sex was surprising. He was used to talking with you about intimately private things like this, though that was before this annoying infatuation with you had manifested into the tiresome nuisance it was now. Still, you’d never exactly stated your.. affinities towards any one thing.

“Ah.. is that so?” He sounds much hoarser than he’d meant to, like he’d choked on something – he still can’t look at you, because suddenly all he can think about is what that meant, if it meant leather and pain or lace and sweetness, if it meant scathing words or saccharine praises.

“Are you blushing?” You’re leaning forward off his couch, grinning and trying to get a look at his face, one of your hands on his knee to keep him from turning away from you - and he realizes that yes, he is fucking blushing, and the place you were touching him felt like it was blistering with heat. “Well, at least you’re not getting all upset with me for injuring your masculine pride or whatever by being a woman who doesn’t like to –“

“Okay! Okay okay, please take mercy on me!” His slightly exaggerated whining is met with your laughter, and his face feels like it’s on fucking fire, but he can’t look away from you now that he’d accidentally met your gaze.

“Sorry – you’re just so cute when you’re flustered!” And he knows he shouldn’t take this as anything more than friendly teasing, just like whenever Hyunggu would call him ‘cute’ whenever he got scared of something, but your words still make something short-circuit in his brain and he swears to everything that you will be the death of him.

“I’m – sorry things didn’t work out with him, but you’re really going to kill me if you keep this up.” And it’s not even a lie – he is ninety-eight percent sure that if you keep talking like this without giving him time to recuperate then he was just going to over-heat and pass out.

“I should go anyway, I’ve distracted you long enough – I didn’t go too far, did I?” You’ve stood up now and are looking down at him with a worried smile, so he just shakes his head because he’s pretty sure if he tried to talk he’d say something stupid like ‘No, I definitely didn’t mind hearing you say that, and while you’re at it please tell me some more’. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? Make sure you eat it all!”

He manages a “goodbye” that sounds sort of like he wasn’t dying, waving to you until you leave and his studio door beeps to signify that it was locked again.

“For fuck’s sake..” Hui forces himself to breathe deep, tries to will some of the heat to leave his face. He really didn’t know why he was getting so flustered over something like this – he wasn’t usually the type. Was it just because it was you? Because he definitely wouldn’t mind if you preferred to be dominant?

Hui curses again, a quiet ‘fuck’ that doesn’t really encompass everything he’s feeling but seems to be the best he can manage. Fuck indeed. He was so fucked.

.｡..｡.

The next time Hui’s in his studio he does his best to forget about the conversation the two of you had had last in there, tries to forget the way his entire body had lit up when you touched his leg, tries to forget the way you’d smiled so sweetly when he fed you.

It doesn’t go well.

To be honest, he didn’t do things like this often – he was busy most of the time, and if he was in his studio then he usually had something he needed to work on instead. But being in this room less than twenty-four hours after you had off-handedly mentioned that you liked to take a more dominant approach in the bedroom had him unable to concentrate on anything else, though he had made a valiant effort for an upwards of fifteen minutes.

With an agitated huff he’s pushing his chair back from his desk with more force than necessary, moving to make sure his studio’s door was locked before taking a seat on the edge of his couch. For a moment he contemplates if he’s really going to do this, runs an aggressive hand through his dyed silver hair and then curses the tingling pain it brings that he doesn’t quite hate as much as he should in the moment.

There’s a lingering feeling of shame and a much stronger feeling of embarrassment covering his body when he reaches for himself, though it only lasts for a few moments until the feeling of the rough friction of his palm through his jeans overpowers anything else.

Hui tips his head back with a soft moan before he remembers he needs to keep quiet, bites his lip when he unzips himself so he can wrap his fingers around his cock more easily. He’s rough, impatient, wants to finish fast but also likes the slight bit of pain – he full body shudders when he finally tugs the waistband of his briefs down and feels the cold air hit him, falling back onto his forearm. He knows, for a fact, that there’s a small bottle of lube in one of his drawers somewhere, but he doesn’t bother looking for it – he’s slick enough as is, and the slight pain keeps him grounded, keeps him from getting into it enough that he wouldn’t be able to monitor his volume.

There’s a slight urgency surrounding it all that is always there when doing something like this in a semi-public place, and he gives into it this time and allows it to urge him on quicker, fucking into his fist like he was going to get caught at any second.

He wants to drag this out, wants to get this over with, wants to think about anything else or feel the need to pull up some dirty video on his phone to finish, but all he can think about is you, you, you – he wonders what it would be like if you were the one stroking him instead, if you’d take pity on him or would be ruthless, if you’d whisper sweet compliments into his skin or humiliate him with biting words, if you’d bite at his neck, he really wanted you to bite at his neck and mark him up –

He orgasms with a choked off cry, hastily shoves the back of his wrist against his teeth to try to keep quiet as his hips buck sloppily into the loose circle of his fingers. He’s never been particularly quiet, and another wave of arousal washes over him as he imagines you telling him to keep it down, warning him that you’d have to gag him otherwise. He whimpers pitifully at the thought and tries to shut his mind down, feeling overstimulated both physically and mentally.

His fingers are sticky, the warmth quickly drying on his skin, and he feels much too hot, a thin sheen of sweat clinging to his skin alongside a layer of shame. He’s not totally sure why but he feels like he’s just made everything worse, like somehow he’d crossed a line and now being around you was going to be ten times harder.

He also feels like this was inevitable though, that his attraction to you had been building for so long that if he hadn’t found a release for it somewhere then he would have gone insane.

Or maybe he’s insane now, now that he’d done something this dirty and depraved. He really didn’t know, gaze still just a bit glassy and unfocused.

What he did know was that he was completely and utterly fucked at this point, collapses onto his back and lets his aching forearm finally take a break as his eyes slide shut in defeat.

.｡..｡.

“You’re not serious.”

“Of course we are, hyung – why, do you have a problem with it?”

Hongseok is taunting him, like he always does, and Hui would usually play along and tease him back but he feels completely thrown off guard and does nothing more than blink at all of them incredulously. His lack of a playful reaction in return has Hongseok softening a bit at the edges, but Hyunggu isn’t nearly as merciful.

“What’s the problem with it? You’ve been wanting us to do something bonding like this for a while, and now we have a time to do it, a reason to do it, and someone to make sure we don’t screw it all up by doing something stupid when we’re drunk.”

“We didn’t force her, hyung, she offered when we asked.” Yuto’s trying to alleviate Hui’s concerns, but he’s way off base – still, he’s trying, so Hui manages what he hopes is more smile than it is grimace in the Japanese boy’s direction.

“We want to drink, she doesn’t like drinking, and we have a few days off because Road to Kingdom ended – what are you so worried about?” Changgu asks him, kind and sincere as always – Hui doesn’t trust him for a minute, but he can’t fight the natural urge to tell everyone what his issue was anyway. God, he hated them sometimes. (They were his family, and he supposed sometimes you just had to hate your family.)

“You all know my – my problem with her.”

“Yeah, we know you want to –“

“Date her.” Wooseok cuts Shinwon off at the last second, modifying whatever it was his hyung had been about to say �� Shinwon looks both annoyed and scandalized that Wooseok had thought he was going to say anything else. Hui does his best to ignore them.

“You really thought I’d be okay with her being the one watching over us while we drank? Knowing that none of us can drink well?” He swore he could literally feel his stress levels rising – it wasn’t like he was an embarrassing drunk or anything, but he knew he had an incredibly low tolerance for it, and he also knew that if the entire group was drinking then they were just going to end up egging one another on until everyone was truly smashed.

“Well, you’re going to have to be okay with it, hyung.” Hyunggu, always the hard-ass, insists forcefully – he doesn’t say it unkindly, but he says it in a tone that brooks no room for disagreement. It’s more Kino’s voice than it is Hyunggu’s, scarily similar to when they’re in the practice room.

Hui knows he could override it with hyung or leader seniority, knows Hyunggu is watching him carefully to see if it’s actually something the elder couldn’t deal with.

He ultimately says nothing, just sighs in a way that lets everyone else know he’s acquiesced – the resulting cheer brings a small smile to his face, even if he still feels uneasy about how the planned drinking night would go. He knew that when it came to both his members and you in one building with alcohol involved there was no way he wasn’t royally fucked.

.｡..｡.

The night goes exactly as you expected it to – none of the Pentagon members could hold their liquor particularly well, which meant that after an hour and a half they were all at their limits. (It was honestly kind of funny to watch. They were all so intent on getting one another drunk that they weren’t really even paying attention to the way everyone was sabotaging each other by constantly keeping the cups full.)

Still, that meant you were mostly trying to make sure they didn’t kill or injure themselves somehow. It wasn’t too hard of a task, though you did have to threaten both Wooseok and Hyunggu to keep them from climbing on top of the only coffee table Dorm A had. You were pretty sure the glass would just shatter under their combined weight. Hyunggu had targeted you with an impressive pout after that, but he’d lost interest pretty quickly when Yuto had fallen asleep - not that you blamed him, the rapper was sort of adorable when he slept.

It also meant that when Hui got up to get water – he swore that’s what he was getting, at least – you followed him. The man was a menace in the kitchen when he was sober, you were almost afraid to imagine what he’d manage to do when he was drunk. Just his presence alone might cause the stove to burst into flames or something. He was seriously cursed.

“Why are you following me?” His question is just a bit slurred together, almost sounding more like he was incredibly sleepy instead of drunk – you figure it’s because he hadn’t had as much to drink, but you weren’t really sure. You hadn’t been monitoring how much any person drank, more concerned with keeping them alive. (They could manage to injure themselves sitting on the floor sober, so being drunk just made your job several times harder.)

“Just checking.” You murmur – he raises his eyebrows at your comment but doesn’t say anything else, turning to grab a glass from one of the cupboards. You watch him for four whole seconds before you decide he’s about to knock several of them to the floor, stepping forward to reach for it instead. Maybe you’d been wrong about how much he had drank.

“I could have gotten it..” His petulance makes you smile, doing your best not to laugh at the little “hmph” he gives you when you inform him that no, he probably could not have.

“Just let me take care of you, you big baby. At least this way I can make sure you’re getting only water.”

“That is all I was getting..” He’s still sulking when you hand it to him, face flushed from the culmination of everything he’d drank tonight. You force your gaze away when he begins to drink – even drunk off his ass he was still an infuriatingly confusing mix of handsome and cute, and you resolutely did not want to watch his throat when he swallowed.

The sound of glass hitting a bit too hard on a solid surface startles you – Hui’s set his glass down incredibly close to your hand, depth perception just a bit fucked. You want to open your mouth to scold him for the close call, but his body heat is incredibly distracting, and he’s raising one of his hands and your breath catches in your throat.

He cages you in against the dorm’s sink, one hand on the side of your neck – to angle the kiss better or to steady himself you weren’t sure – with the other bracing himself as he presses his lips to yours. He’s so ultra-hot against your body, tastes of the same fruity drink Shinwon had been pressing into his hand all evening, the metal of his belt buckle biting into your stomach.

It’s not until he gives a soft breathy moan into your mouth that you realize you’ve been kissing him back for the past thirty seconds in his own kitchen, heedless of the rest of his members in the adjoining room or the fact that he was drunk enough he could barely stand without assistance. You press at his shoulders with minimal force, missing the pressure of his lips when he instantly moves away.

“What..?” He looks immensely confused, and you feel awful for kissing him back when you weren’t totally sure he was even aware of what he was doing. “Why’d you push me away?“

“Hui –“

“You kissed me back, so why’d y –“

“I just don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret later, Hwitaek.” You hope the use of his full name will get through to him – it seems it does, in some regard, because while he chokes out a half-disbelieving and half-tormented laugh he still pauses and blinks at you slowly like he was trying to carefully choose his next words.

“You act like I haven’t wanted to do this since the first time I met you.” And oh, his voice is just a bit huskier, a bit slurred on the syllables, but he says them carefully and you know that, at the very least, Drunk Hui meant them.

The problem was that you didn’t know if Sober Hui would agree.

“You should go to bed, Hui.” You say this instead of saying all the other things crowding the tip of your tongue, instead of grabbing him by the collar and kissing him again – alcohol took away a person’s consent, and you weren’t about to take a chance to pressure Hui into doing something you weren’t sure he wanted in the first place.

“No one else has gone to bed yet..” Now he’s sulking – but this is normal, this you can deal with. You can pretend like your lips didn’t still tingle where his had been touching, can pretend like you weren’t already addicted to the feeling.

“That’s not really a valid argument considering Yuto’s fallen asleep twice already.” You counter, watching the way he bites at his bottom lip in frustration – you know it for what it is, and it still seems coy to you instead, like he’s trying to seduce you.

God, what was wrong with you? He was just pouting now, brow furrowed, and you feel absolutely pathetic for seeing his current actions as anything other than what they really were.

It didn’t matter how attractive or desirable you found him, you couldn’t in good conscience do anything while he was so inebriated.

“Come on, Hui – let’s get you to bed so I can get back to the other boys to make sure they haven’t done something stupid, like coercing Hongseok into wrestling Changgu shirtless. Again.”

“It wasn’t that stupid –“

“They literally broke a bookshelf with their bodies, be quiet.” The banter comes easily, is normal and comfortable – it’s easy to pretend like he hadn’t just been kissing you, like you hadn’t just been fantasizing about him seducing you of his own free will. His skin is warm underneath your fingertips, flushed from the alcohol, as you direct him by the bicep down the hall and to his room.

You’re rarely in here – he’s rarely in here, actually, considering how much time he spends at his studio, how often he sleeps there. Because of that his room is sparsely decorated, an incredibly faint lingering smell of the cologne he occasionally wore clinging to the edges of some of the surfaces. It’s a heady scent that you do your absolute best to ignore, because it brings to mind images of him whenever he bothered to get extra dressed up, devastatingly handsome.

He lets you guide him over to his bed with zero fuss but turns back towards you when his knees hit the edge of it, one hand coming up to caress your cheek. It’s a deceptively gentle action, and you know you should really stop him, but you don’t move when he leans in to kiss you again. Underneath the flavor of alcohol there’s a distinctive taste that is purely him, and you know if you weren’t addicted to kissing him before then you definitely were now.

When you nip at his bottom lip and he lets out a shuddering moan you realize what you’re doing, try to pull away as fast as you can – this wasn’t fair to him, when he wasn’t in his right mind – but he catches you with a hand frantically landing on your waist, dropping his head to litter kisses along your jaw and then throat. You try to ignore the way your legs go weak at the feeling.

“Please –“ It’s more of a whine than a plea, but you feel it against the skin of your neck all the same, the words dragged along your pulse-point like a searing flame. “If we don’t now, then I don’t think –“

“You need to sleep.” It takes every ounce of willpower inside of you to ignore the wetness pooling between your legs, the insistent hard press of his cock against your thigh, the way his whimper when you push at his chest vibrates along the skin of your shoulder where he presses one last desperate kiss. “We can – we’ll talk about it in the morning.” You continue to push him gently back until he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, gazing up at you through his eyelashes, flushed and looking five different kinds of wrecked. Your entire nervous system threatens to shut down at the sight and you’re not sure that you can keep your promise about talking about it tomorrow.

He’s apparently not sure of it either, expression pinched and distraught when you press him insistently by the shoulders back onto his bed. His hair is ruffled and his eyes are glazed (from the alcohol or lust, you weren’t sure), his lips slick and kiss-bruised –

You tear your gaze away and force yourself to breathe again. When you look back Hui’s thrown a forearm over his eyes, bottom lip snagged between his teeth, breathing labored.

It takes ten seconds before you’re out of the room, clicking the door shut as quietly as you can, trying to erase the imagery of tears staining his face.

.｡..｡.

When Hui wakes up it’s to a pounding head and the vaguely disgusting feeling you get when you sleep in your clothes on top of your covers. His entire body hurts and he makes the same promise he always does when he wakes up like this, the same one he’s never kept – he’ll never drink again. Or, at the very least, he’ll never drink that much again.

His whole room spins when he pushes himself up, groaning softly at the way he feels like the world tilts dangerously on its axis as he slides his legs off the edge of his mattress. It’s only because of this world-shifting that he notices Wooseok asleep on the other side of his bed, all his long limbs drawn in as close as possible, his brow furrowed in his sleep.

He wonders when the maknae had ended up here and how they’d decided on rooms while he goes to the pain-staking process of draping one of his extra blankets over the tall boy. The world is still too bright (even with his blinds shut) and every step he takes feels a bit like walking through mud, but when he sees the way Wooseok slightly relaxes after being covered it all feels worth it.

The trek from his room to the kitchen feels like it takes much longer than it should, but at the very least the suspiciously long stretch of the dorm gives ample time for his headache to shift from excruciating to manageable. He was going to find the bottle of Aspirin, take all of them, and then go the fuck back to sleep. (Okay, maybe one of those was an exaggeration, but it sure felt like he could use that many painkillers.)

“Good morning.” He almost chokes when he hears your voice, a sudden onslaught of memories causing his face to heat up – you weren’t even looking at him, busying yourself with the small skillet Hongseok kept religiously cleaned. Hui wasn’t sure if his nausea was due to the smell of food or the way all he could think about was how he had – stupidly, why the fuck had he done that – kissed you and then tried to get you into bed with him.

“..Morning.” He hopes you take his lackluster response as a product of his hangover, sliding into one of the chairs at the kitchen table so he can bury his head in his hands.

“That bad, huh? You’re going to have to learn to tell Shinwon ‘no’ when he offers you drinks, you know.” He looks up to see you placing what he assumes is an Aspirin down on the table in front of him, already turned back to grab him water. He’s not sure if he’s glad you mistook his suffering as the results of a hangover or not.

“Thanks.” He waits until you hand him the glass before he takes the medicine, downing the rest of the contents when he realizes just how thirsty he was. He can feel the weight of your gaze still on him and it makes the blood in his veins feel like ice, knowing you had to remember the exact same things he (suddenly) did.

“If it makes you feel any better, Hongseok is way worse off than you right now. I honestly can’t believe he’s such a lightweight sometimes…” Your tone is sympathetic, but all Hui feels is a slight smug happiness at there being someone else who was, at the very least, suffering more than he currently was. At least Hongseok hadn’t had the chance to do anything stupid with someone he liked last night, like Hui had. “Honestly, it’s sort of impressive.”

“Huh?” He’d stopped listening to you by pure accident, forces himself to refocus on you – which just causes his eyes to instantly lock on to your lips, face heating up because not only does he remember kissing them, he remembers what they felt like and tasted like and he has to fight to tear his gaze away. God he was so fucked.

“How many lightweights you have in your band. In a group of nine you’d think it’d be more even, but, like.. almost all of you can’t hold your liquor. It’s kind of impressive.” You’re back to focusing on whatever it is you’re cooking – he only just now notices you also have ramen boiling in their small stove to the side, the dull bubbling of the water having blended into background noise long before he’d realized it had been there.

“Are they okay?” He’s sure they are, but there’s some deeply ingrained part of him that feels required to check – the soft smile you give him in response makes him feel like he’s in high school again whenever his crush would focus on him and him alone, and he isn’t sure what to do with that feeling now that he’s twenty eight years old, so he looks down at his empty cup instead.

“They’ll be okay. Wooseokkie ended up in your room – I’m sure you noticed him.” You wait for him to glance at you and nod before continuing. “Hongseok and Changgu ended up in the same room together, which worked out well considering Changgu’s probably the only one who could sleep through Hongseok’s pitiful whining about his hangover anyway. Hyunggu and Yuto shared a room, I think – which I guess means Shinwon ended up alone. Any guess on whether he’ll be happy or upset about that?”

“It could be either.” He responds, mostly because it’s true (Shinwon’s moods were hard to predict sometimes) but partly because talking about his members was something he could easily do, something that felt familiar and normal. It felt safe and far away from the topic he didn’t want to think about. (But he was thinking about it anyway, could remember your warmth when your body was pressed against his, could remember the way you kissed him back bruisingly and made him want nothing more than for you to wreck him every day of his life.)

“Oh, right – Yanan’s in China, by the way, and Jinho’s in the military.”

“Thanks.” His response is a dry remark at the way you were trying to tease him – like he didn’t know where Yanan was and wasn’t constantly in contact with the soon-to-be actor, like he didn’t think about Jinho every single day and wonder if he was doing well. “What would I do without your incredibly timely information.”

You just roll your eyes at him and turn to the ramen – he wonders who you’re making it for before realizing it was probably for whoever woke up hungry. That realization makes a certain spot in his chest warm, and he tries to ignore it because for fuck’s sake, not now.

“I knew it was going to go badly..” He mutters to himself – you hum questioningly and he blinks, surprised you heard him and instantly trying to reach for a half-truth that you’d believe. “Drinking so much, I mean.” Not totally a lie, which meant he could say it and have it sound mostly believable. To his relief you seem to take it at face value.

A silence stretches out between the two of you – it seems comfortable for you, but he feels like his skin is crawling, waiting for the moment you spring the dreaded conversation on him. He can’t think of any more topics to bring up to stall it.

“Hwitaek.” The tone of your voice makes his heart drop into his stomach and freezes over any warmth he’d been feeling because he knows the conversation that is now seconds away from happening is going to be one he didn’t ever want to have. “I think we should talk about what happened last night.”

“What happened?” He tries to brush it off like he didn’t remember, but his voice wavers just a bit and he can’t meet your gaze and he knows that you don’t buy it for a second.

“We have to.” Your voice is soft, gentle, and he hates it because he feels like you’re trying to be as kind as possible, and that didn’t bode well for how the conversation was going to go. “Did you do what you did because you were drunk, or because you were drunk and wanted to?”

Your gaze has him pinned to the seat, his own eyes wide and brain trying to stutter through any excuse he could think of, and when that didn’t work, trying to think of some way he could play it all off as a joke, or as him just being an overly friendly drunk.

You won’t believe anything but the truth, he can tell, and he was a shit liar even when he wasn’t hungover and panicked.

“I –“ He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, probably something stupid like ‘I love you, and I don’t know when I knew that but I’ve always wanted to kiss you, I was drunk but it let me do what I always wanted to do’ but he’s saved by Hyunggu walking into the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes and looking a bit less like hell than Hui felt.

“I think I’m dying..” The maknae grumbles, and your attention shifts to him and getting him something to help his headache. Hui tries to feel relieved that the conversation had been dropped, but the look you send him once over Hyunggu’s shoulder says, ‘We’re not done talking about this’ and he feels sick all over again. He was so fucked.

.｡..｡.

It isn’t until he escapes to his studio later that day, having basically inhaled an entire cup of coffee to try to fight off both his hangover and his exhaustion, that he realizes that aside from all his personal problems with how the night before had went he had essentially pushed himself on you and then not allowed you an avenue to talk to him about it.

And that makes him feel even more sick, because there had been a chance you’d just wanted closure of some kind considering he had basically drunkenly assaulted you, and all he’d done was avoid the issue entirely when you tried to talk to him about it.

Fuck. Fuck, he was the worst.

He’d been so worried about rejection that he hadn’t even thought about the fact that you’d never consented to being kissed – or, fuck, being propositioned for sex – in the first place.

He runs both hands through his hair aggressively, ruffling it in the slightly painful way he usually did whenever he did something he wasn’t happy with – he feels anxiety sitting cold in his stomach, fear that not only would you hate him but that he’d ended up hurting you or breaking your trust in him all because he’d gotten stupidly drunk.

Pushing down the steadily rising nausea, he reaches for his phone and almost calls you, deciding at the last moment to text you a simple ‘You’re right, we need to talk’ instead. He’d already fucked up once, he didn’t want to force you into the conversation by calling you unexpectedly. As an afterthought he adds a quickly typed ‘I’m sorry I tried to avoid it before’, because despite how nervous the thought makes him, he is genuinely sorry. (Sorry for everything, in fact.)

He tries to busy himself with unfinished tracks while waiting for you to respond, listens to the same snippet of some demo Yuto had sent him six times without really ever hearing the notes, does his absolute best to ignore how one of the last times he was in here he’d ended up touching himself to the thought of you. With everything that had happened since he feels fucking disgusting at the thought of it.

When his phone vibrates he essentially lunges for it – it wasn’t like he’d been making progress on anything anyway – heart hammering in his throat as he opens your messages.

‘It’s okay. In person or by a call?’

He wants to fucking cry at how nice you’re being, at giving him the option to choose a less personal route – but he knows that you were the one who’d taken the brunt of the incident, that all he was really worried about was rejection and being embarrassed. His fingers tap out ‘I’m embarrassed, but it’s up to you’ before deleting the first part before sending. He didn’t want you to feel like he was trying to pressure you into one choice or the other at this point.

‘Knowing you, and seeing how you reacted this morning, I think you’d die if we did it in person lol I’ll call you’

He tries to fight the weak smile your text causes – you always make him smile, and this is no different, but he can’t tell if you’re genuinely okay or not through text and it worries him. You’d seemed fine this morning, almost painfully nonchalant – too nonchalant? He wasn’t sure if he was overthinking things now or not – but he’d been hungover and tired.

You don’t call right away, and he resigns himself to waiting out another five or so minutes in this sickening state of anxiety, selecting and re-selecting the exact same clip of audio over and over just so he can pretend he’s doing something, so he can try to occupy his brain.

When his phone does ring he slams his knee into the table in surprise, high-strung and nervous. He barely even feels the tingling pain.

“I’m so sorry.” He blurts out the instant he answers, muttering a soft fuck under his breath afterwards. He’d wanted to give you time to speak, but he was buzzing with an anxious and guilty energy that had him speaking before he even realized he was.

“What?” Your question sounds more surprised than legitimately confused, like you hadn’t expected him to just start talking immediately. He rakes a hand through his hair again and then keeps it there, fisted, trying to ground himself with the tiny bit of pain as his breathing speeds up.

“About last night – I’m so sorry, I just – I was drunk, and that’s no excuse for what I did, I wasn’t thinking and I’m so fucking sorry. Are – are you okay? Am I allowed to ask that?” He feels like he’s right on the verge of panicking and he hates it, because you were the victim here, not him.

“I –“ You only pause to collect your thoughts for a heartbeat, but he feels the moment stretch on endlessly, sees ninety different scenarios play out and discards every positive one immediately. “Hui, you’re – god you’re so sweet.”

“What?” It’s more of an exhale than a word, because you didn’t sound angry, or hurt, you just sounded slightly amused and grateful, and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up but you didn’t sound upset.

“You’re right, what you did was wrong and shitty, and you suck for doing it.” You pause to breathe, and it reminds him he needs to breathe, his gaze darting along one of his computer monitors without really seeing anything. “But it’s sweet of you to apologize. You should, but most people wouldn’t.”

“I should have this morning.” He murmurs quietly, fingers gripping his phone so tightly they’ve begun to ache. “I was selfish and didn’t even think about it. I really am so fucking sorry.”

“I know, Hui. I believe you. You suck at lying anyway, if you weren’t sorry then I’d be able to tell.” You’re laughing again, and he tries to join you, but it sounds weak. His entire body feels like it’s melted into nothing – he didn’t even care if you rejected him at this point, you didn’t hate him and that was good enough. “But I kissed you back, Hui. Multiple times, actually.”

“…..what?” He can’t think of anything else to say – he had remembered you kissing him back, of course he did, but it all sort of blurred together at one point and he wasn’t sure that any of it had definitively happened. “I – I know – I mean, I thought you did, but you could have just, I don’t know, been trying.. to.. get me to go away by not resisting..?” Some drunks became irate when told ‘no’, and while he knew he wasn’t one of them – and he had a feeling you did too – that didn’t mean you hadn’t just been trying to protect yourself.

“God you’re sweet.” Your sudden, repeated statement is quiet, almost like you hadn’t meant him to hear it – he doesn’t say anything, doing his best to just breathe, doing his best to act his fucking age and not like some kid who needed instant reassurance. You were the one who deserved reassurance in this situation. “I kissed you because I wanted to, Hui. It’s very kind of you to be so concerned, but you’re about the least threatening drunk I’ve ever encountered. I could have probably pushed you off me with one hand – actually, I did push you off me with one hand, when we were in the kitchen.”

“I – you – you wanted to.” It’s a statement because he’s stuck trying to process this new information, because this wasn’t a rejection (he thinks it’s not, at least), because you didn’t hate him, because the way all the anxiety induced adrenaline had leeched out of his body was leaving him feeling even more exhausted than before.

“I actually wanted to tell you that I was sorry – since I kissed you back and all, but you were drunk so it wasn’t really like you were –“

“I wanted to – I wanted you to.” He says the words too fast, trips over them, but he knows you understood by the way you went silent on the other end. He appreciated the apology, really, he did, but not only did he not think it was needed, he also couldn’t stand listening to you apologize for kissing him back when he had been dreaming about this moment for way too fucking long.

And he wants to tell you that, but you’re still silent and he’s beginning to wonder if he somehow read this entire situation wrong.

“..I don’t know what to say now.” You admit softly, and he lets out a silent exhale when he realizes you’re just being shy. He wasn’t used to that side of you, but already he knew he found it adorable, just like the rest of you.

“You can’t be more embarrassed than me, if you are then neither of us will be able to talk.” He’s laughing quietly now, feeling.. not quite comfortable yet, but definitely on the way there. You hadn’t really made any declaration of love for him, but you had reciprocated his kiss, at the very least.

“Oh, you need me to be confident?” There’s a teasing tone in your voice that is more commonplace than the shy one from before, and he already knew just by the sound of it that whatever you’re going to say next is going to affect him in some way.

“It’d be helpful.”

“Then I’d say we need to try that whole kissing thing again, but without the alcohol. It really ruined the experience last time, don’t you think?” He suddenly can’t breathe again, mouth opening and then closing at your statement – not that you care about his lack of a response, since you continue without him saying anything. “It could have led to so many fun places if you hadn’t been drunk.” A pause, where his heartbeat pounds in his head and his mouth has gone dry. When you speak again he can tell you’re doing your best to keep up your confident façade. “..Is that okay with you?”

“Yes.” He says this on a relieved breath, face still hot but body covered in excited, adrenaline filled tingles. You were really putting him through an emotional workout this morning, but at this point he wouldn’t dare complain. “Please. I’ve wanted –“

He cuts himself off before he can say anything more embarrassing, about how long he’s wanted to do something like that, to hear you say something like that, how he’s fantasized and day-dreamed about it for way too long. He flushes even more when he can hear your gentle laughter on the other line.

“You mentioned something like that last night. I wanted to ask about it actually –“

“Oh, wow, I am super busy right now doing leader things, just.. so busy. I couldn’t possibly talk to you anymore, I’m just so extremely busy.”

“Jerk.” This time when you laugh he laughs with you, a real laugh instead of the weak one he’d offered you earlier. “Okay, fine, go do your suddenly important work – but I’m definitely interrogating you about that later, it’s just too interesting to pass up. Bye Hwitaek.”

“Bye.”

It’s so like you to cut the conversation short whenever he mentioned his work – you never wanted to genuinely distract him, and it was one of the things he liked about you.

Loved about you.

Fuck. Fuck.

He can’t contain his laugh of disbelief and giddiness, setting his phone down on his desk so he can cover his face with both of his hands, running them through his hair and pushing it back away from his eyes.

You said you’d wanted to kiss him. You had kissed him. He hadn’t imagined it.

You’d said you wanted to kiss him again.

His phone vibrates and he lowers his hands to glance at it, sees it’s a text from you, and already he can feel that warm, lightweight feeling in his chest just at the sight of it.

God, he was so fucked – but with how this had turned out, he really couldn’t complain at all, nor did he want to.

.｡..｡.

Trying the ‘kissing thing’ again, as you had put it to him on the phone, turned out to be a nebulous concept – not that Hui really expected anything else, but it was a bit disappointing to finally get an answer (a positive one at that) only to be unable to meet up with you again. Not that getting to text you often wasn’t wonderful – it was, and he felt the need to make that abundantly clear (though he was pretty sure you knew that, considering he actually paid attention to his phone now just so he could respond to you) – it was just a bit frustrating to finally have permission to do the things he’d been dreaming about, like kissing you, and then be barred from doing it by forces outside of his control.

As it was, it was nearing the end of the second week since the ’confession’ had happened, and he was only just now finding time to head over to your place after working all day. It was late (nearing four am, he noticed with a groan) and his muscles ached from practice and his eyes ached from composing all day but he would be damned if he’d let another chance to spend time with you slip by him without leaping for it.

“You look so attractive.” It’s the first thing out of your mouth when you see him at your door – Hui laughs the soft sort of laugh he does when he’s a bit nervous, bending to unlace his shoes. It’s not rare of you to compliment him – in fact, you usually did, because it was true and he deserved all the kind words you could heap on him – but something about the circumstances makes it feel different this time, charges the air with a sort of excited, nervous tension.

“Really? I came over right after practice, I can’t look that good..” He trails off, shy, and you look him over again. It’s true that he looks a bit tired and run down, but the dim low lighting of your entryway paints his skin golden and throws his profile into a mix of soft shadows and gentle lines, illuminates his silver hair into a gradient of golden blonde to dusky gray.

“You look good, trust me.” It’s all you can say – everything else gets stuck in your head, muddling itself before it can get to your tongue. You hope to one day be able to properly put into words just how beautiful he is to you, but you’re in no rush to do it now, you have time. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay tomorrow?”

“If I passed up on this chance then I might legitimately die.” He says it so seriously that you laugh, and the way his expression smooths out into a warm smile has your heart beating erratically. God, he didn’t play fair at all.

“Well, if you’re sure..” You take the chance to step closer to him during the slight lull in conversation – he blinks at you once, still smiling, but the smile freezes on his face when you nonchalantly place your arms around his neck. You can feel the way he’s tensed at the new, intimate position, and it’s absolutely adorable how he clearly wants to reciprocate in some way but resolutely keeps his arms at his sides. “You –“

“Can I kiss you?” He says it all in one breath, interrupting you, rushed and embarrassed but also like he craves it, like he might die if he didn’t get your permission to do so. It’s the cutest thing in the world and a surge of heat floods your bloodstream at the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes. “Please.” He tacks it on at the end, a quiet whisper, so fucking good and sweet and perfect.

“Of course, baby.” The words are barely out of your mouth before he’s surging forward to connect your lips, his hands landing on your waist and a soft sound of pleasure escaping him as a sigh. The pet-name of ‘baby’ is one you learned that he liked recently, and while it had been deliciously fun to tease him with it through text and over the phone it was something else entirely to see the way he responded to it in person, the rich sunset color of his eyes softening into something more gentle and pliant.

The way Hui kisses now is slightly different than when he’d been drunk – it’s more assured, more precise, and while it still holds that level of desperation from before there’s something a bit less rushed about it, something more confident and not as nervous as before.

There's something infinitely better about doing it this way, Hui thinks, better than anything he'd fantasized about or hazily remembered from when he'd been drunk. Every single one of his senses is attuned to you and you alone, and nothing exists outside of the two of you kissing, the weight of your arms on his shoulders, the feeling of your nails lightly scraping at the nape of his neck, the rough feeling of your clothing beneath the pads of his fingers at your hips. Your lips press and slide against his constantly before parting for a few brief seconds, and he chases the faint swipe of your tongue against his bottom lip with his own, whining when you don't instantly give in to his demands.

By the time you nip at his lip he's completely given up on leading the kiss, opens his mouth and moans high and sweet when your tongue leaves a blazing trail of pure fire in its wake. His lips are kiss-bruised and tingling, the sensation imprinting on him that this was real, you were really kissing him, he wasn't going to suddenly wake up and realize it was all a dream.

When you pull away from him he follows you for a moment, stopping only when you cup his cheek in one hand and slide your thumb across his bottom lip. His gaze is glazed and he looks so thoroughly wrecked from simply getting kissed that you feel another surge of heat flood your system.

"Good?" Your whispered question barely makes it through to him, but when it does he blinks a few times to force the haze from his mind and nods, grip on your waist tightening, grounding him. You’ve never seen someone look more adorable.

“Yeah.” His voice is slightly hoarse and you give in to the urge to kiss his throat tenderly – when he tilts his head back with a sigh you trail your lips up to his jaw. “Yeah, it’s – great.”

You can feel the heat of his skin against your face, leave open-mouthed kisses from the spot under his ear (which makes him shiver in a way that you immediately catalogue in your mind) in a line down to the collar of the light-weight hoodie he’d worn for practice.

“I wish I could mark you up here..” Your lamentations are met with a literal fucking whine from Hui, one of his hands coming up to grip unsteadily at the crook of your arm like the mere comment had made him unsteady. “Oh? Is that something you’d want? For me to bruise you up so prettily that there’d be no way you could cover it?”

He nods, not trusting his own voice, head full of fantasies where you could do that, where you’d be able to sink your teeth into him, suck dark marks into his skin that wouldn’t fade and that his members would tease him about. (But even in his fantasies his members are there, a constant, and he knows that there’s no other timeline better than the one he’s currently living in.)

“Hwitaek.” You say his name softly, wrap a hand around the back of his neck to make him look at you – his gaze is disconnected, lingers on your lips before your silence registers as he meets your eyes. “I think we should talk about what we both want out of tonight.”

“Yeah – okay, okay.” Fondly, you watch as he takes a small step back and forces himself to become more present, a bit of clarity re-entering his eyes. You notice that he hadn’t stepped far enough away that either of you had to stop touching one another though, and it makes a part of your heart warm with affection. “That’s probably a good idea.”

He lets you lead him further into your house, glances around in interest but doesn’t stop you – he thinks (hopes) he’ll have more time later to become acquainted with this place.

“So, Hui –“ He perks up at you speaking to him, and it’s so cute that you have to stop just to recollect your thoughts. He peers around your room with thinly veiled interest but keeps glancing back at you like you’re the most interesting thing in existence. It’s flattering and adorable. “Considering we’ve talked about it before you know that I prefer to be more dominant, and you –“

“Find it incredibly hot?” He finishes your sentence for you, a happy little smirk on his face at your surprised expression as he darts in to kiss you once, quick and chaste and filled with delight.

“I – I was going to say, ‘you’re okay with it’, but what you said was so much better.” You’re smiling now too, still a bit shell-shocked – really, what sort of luck did you have for an incredibly attractive and sweet guy to also be down for being submissive for you? – but definitely not complaining. You cup his face in your hands and draw him towards you again for a sweet kiss – it lingers just on the side of ‘too passionate’, but neither one of you have enough self-control to reign it back in. You can feel his flush underneath your fingertips. “How did I ever get this lucky?”

“Should I say the cliché thing about thinking the same thing?” His voice is soft, one of his hands coming up to slip underneath your own, fingers curling around your palm. “Because I was.”

“You really are a hopeless romantic sometimes, you know that?” You couple your rhetorical question with another kiss – you were one hundred percent addicted to them now, you knew that for a fact. “We should really talk about what you’re comfortable with happening tonight, Hui.”

He must not be thinking clearly (he’s not, all he can think about is you and how you keep kissing him and how it’s all he’s ever wanted in his entire life) because he says “anything” in a strained whisper, breathless and needy before anything has even happened.

“Anything?” You can’t hide the surprise in your voice, though you try to soften it at the last second – he flinches anyway, like he was embarrassed with how eager he had come across, his gaze somewhere at your hip now. “’Anything’ is a dangerous thing to say, Hwitaek. What if all I wanted to do was finger-fuck you?”

He knows you were joking – he can hear it in your voice, the way you’ve tried to lighten the mood to make him more comfortable. He appreciates it, but it does absolutely nothing for him considering the effect your words had on him. “…I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Really?” Again you’re surprised, but this time you seem slightly eager – he raises his gaze to assess the situation, and yes, you did look interested. The excited, nervous little fire burning in his core feels a bit stronger suddenly. All he can do is nod, mute in the face of your presence, your power, your effortless aura that has him sinking down gratefully onto your bed at the slightest push of your hand against his chest.

Your fingers press at him, hard, and he feels breathless when they slide underneath his hoodie and t-shirt both in one go, hitch it up to above his navel. He thinks about all the marks you could leave on him there, hidden under clothing between promotions, and the sly grin you share with him when your fingernails rake a teasingly shuddering line down his side makes him think you have the exact same ideas he does.

Those two articles of clothing are lost quickly, dropped somewhere over the side of your bed as you kneel between his legs and kiss him until he can’t breathe, a wonderful feeling that has him drifting along in hazy bliss until he realizes what you’re doing.

“You’re a bit more dressed than I am, suddenly..” He tries to make it teasing but it comes out as something soft and reverent, and your lips when they smile at him are a slash of color that he can’t tear his eyes away from. He can feel your curious fingers dipping under the waistband of his athletic joggers and he does his best not to lose his fucking mind at the connotations of it.

“That’ll come. Later. Let me focus on you first, Hwitaek.” And how could he even argue with that? Why would he argue that? He’d have time to see your body later – and to be completely honest, he was perfectly happy with seeing however much of you that you were comfortable showing him.

(Still, he thinks, as you gently push him to lie down on your bed, he hoped you weren’t too uncomfortable with showing your body. As you drag the fabric of his briefs slowly down his legs he thinks about how much he really wants to eat you out, and what a shame it’d be if you weren’t comfortable with that. Regardless, he’d find some way to pay his respects to you and your body, even if his regular go-to’s turned out to not be an option.)

“You’ve done this before?” He doesn’t sound nervous, just questioning, having slung a  forearm across his eyes. You let him leave it there for now, knowing he must feel a bit vulnerable in his current position.

“Mhm, I have – and you?” It’s almost laughable how casually the two of you are speaking, like you hadn’t just been feeling him up and wasn’t currently in the middle of warming lube on your fingers. When he nods you hum and use your clean hand to grip him under the knee, pulling it up high enough you can place a kiss on the inside of it. An amused laugh leaves him in the form of a surprised exhale at the surprisingly tender action.

“I have – don’t worry, I’m not new to all of this.” You can’t see his eyes but you can see the rest of his face, see that he’s still smiling – you keep a close eye on his expression as you circle his rim teasingly, watching with rapt attention the way the smile disappears as he tenses with a soft sound that’s not quite a gasp before forcing himself to relax again.

“With women or men?” You keep it casual, careful to keep your voice unaffected, and he laughs again but it’s more disbelieving this time, pulls his legs up so his knees bracket you on either side.

“Yes.” Hui simply answers, and it’s your turn to laugh, your free hand smoothing soothing circles into his bare hip. You think he looks absolutely beautiful like this, spread out just for you and you alone, a small notch in his brow from the way his expression has twisted as you carefully slip your first finger in.

“You’re really cute like this, all vulnerable and naked for me.” You’re teasing him, testing the waters – from the way he flushes though, the little hitch upwards that his hips make, you think you might have just discovered something fun. “Hui, do you like me talking to you like that?”

He doesn’t answer you right away, moves his arm so he can look down at you between his legs. Something about it must get to him, because he just looks at you for a moment or two, like he was trying to imprint the visual in his mind.

“You can add another.” He says instead, all breathy and soft like you’d already ruined him, wrecked him into pieces. It’s incredibly endearing, you think, dropping your gaze to where his cock sits red and shiny and untouched against his lower stomach, a small mess of pre-cum already smeared onto his skin. That was also endearing.

“I’ve barely even stretched you yet..” Your disbelieving murmur is clearly heard by him, and you raise your gaze to meet his as you test the waters with a second finger. It’s definitely tight (tighter than you would have preferred, if only for his own safety), but Hui just moans and shifts his hips more towards you, digging into your pillow as he tips his head back. “Oh – Hui the size queen, huh? Is that it?”

He laughs, but it tapers off into a sound closer to a moan than anything else. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

“Does it suit you?” You keep one hand splayed flat on one of his hips – he’s doing a wonderful job at not moving overly much, but by doing this you can feel every small tremor that goes through his body, can feel his muscles tense each time he forces himself to stay still. “If I end up fucking you one day am I going to have to make sure it’s sized big enough to totally wreck you?” Your question is coupled with an inquisitive upwards quirk of your fingers, and he nearly kicks you in surprise at the liquid arousal that floods through his body at the feeling. (You teasingly bite at his lower calf for it, and the soft sound he makes as you press your teeth into him is definitely something you file away for later.)

“I know you’re just teasing me, but -“ He licks his lips, tries to gather his focus again as you add a third finger. It burns in such an exquisite way that it’s hard to concentrate on anything else except for the current points of contact between you and him.

“Do you want me to stop?” A pause. “Hui, look at me.”

He obeys, meets your analyzing gaze and offers a slightly strained smile as he thinks about your question – though he doesn’t think for very long, a burst of wonderful, embarrassed heat curling across his chest and through his stomach when he lets his upper body drop back down to the bed, shaking his head ‘no’.

“Oh, Hwitaek..” You sound vaguely pitying, and he hates it, but he loves it. “You’re just a little boy who likes to be teased and humiliated, is that it?”

He feels so small with you talking to him like that, like his body was three sizes too big for his skin and he was burning up from the inside out – whenever the heat becomes too much all he has to do is open his eyes and see you looking at him (you’re always looking at him, and it takes his breath away because the way you watch him makes him feel like he’s something special, something that should be treasured) and suddenly everything was okay again. It was like you were the one stoking the flames of his desire, but you could also cause that blistering heat to ebb away whenever it became too much.

He realizes he hasn’t answered you yet and frantically nods, heart threatening to dissolve into something sticky and sweet at the way your expression softens.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we’re not going to delve too deep into that tonight without talking about it in more detail later.” He nods, because he really does understand (despite the slight burst of disappointment) and he appreciates that you want to talk out what his limits are first. “Besides, how am I supposed to talk to you like that when you’ve been so good for me this entire time? So pretty and vocal.”

He can’t help the whine that tears itself from his throat at your phrasing – it didn’t matter what you were saying to him anymore, every single word embedded itself into his skin and worked its way through his body like an electric shock.

“Oh? Sweet boy - are you an adorable whore for both degradation and praise?” He doesn’t even bother saying anything this time, just shuts his eyes tight - he knows you already know the answer, can read him so well it’s almost like his desires were written out on his skin in black ink. “That’s so cute. You’re just so responsive to everything, aren’t you? I love that - anything I say or do I’ll get a direct response to, won’t I, Hwitaek?” You wait until he nods, his eyes still shut, before taking the opportunity given to you. Your lips press a teasing kiss into the line of his pelvis, giggling softly against his skin when he gasps above you. “Yeah, just like that. So beautiful, Hui, and all for me.”

Yes, all for you he thinks, and even his thoughts are getting mixed up and hazy now because you’ve wrapped your fingers around him loosely and he is so slick already, the feeling of your thumb swiping across the head of his cock, tracing the lines of precum down the shaft to where they’ve collected on his skin causing his entire body to twitch in a mess of stimulation.

“Oh, baby, you’re so wet for me already.” He can’t focus on anything, can’t think of anything, hears your voice through the haze like it’s faraway and he’s drifting underwater. He tries to force himself to be more present, tries to physically drag himself out of those depths, but you’re cooing at him sweetly and running your fingers over his cock softly, and any amount of shame he might have felt at having fallen so far into this headspace is eradicated by the sugar-laced kisses you press into his side.

“You really can’t keep quiet, can you?” Your voice is sweet but laced with amusement, and you can feel the way he throbs in your hand at the slightly degrading comment. “You sound like you’re going to cum just from three of my fingers – are you, baby? You going to make a mess of yourself before we even get to do anything?”

“Fuck..” Hui’s entire body feels like it’s on fucking fire, and when you duck your head to suck a bruise onto the inside of his thigh it’s all he can do to keep from crying out even louder. You were right, he couldn’t keep quiet, his head swimming and his fingers curled so tightly into your sheets that he could barely feel them anymore. “I’m –  you’re –“ He can’t concentrate, can barely speak, and he knows his words come out more as whines anyway.

“Do you think it’ll be okay if you cum now?” You’ve stopped moving entirely and his whole body feels like it’s buzzing, his hips trying to rock back onto your fingers or up into your hand with no real success as the haze slowly recedes from his mind enough for him to be able to form full sentences

“Y-yeah.” He pushes himself up onto his forearms to be able to look down at you, groan catching in his throat when he sees the way you’re peering at him openly, watching him with beautiful eyes and a graceful flush on your face, one of your hands slick with his pre-cum and the other still wickedly deep. He’d never been more sure of the fact that he loved you than this exact moment. “If – if you give me a little bit afterwards, it’ll be fine.” He knows he sounds breathless and wrecked already, but you smile so sweetly at him anyway, like he was something precious to you, and he feels like the ground and the bed he was lying on had just suddenly disappeared at the sight.

And then you’re lowering your head and wrapping your lips around him and it’s all he can do to keep his eyes open – you hadn’t eased him into it, hadn’t given him any indication of your plans at all. One moment you were asking him about his refractory period and the next you were doing things with your tongue and mouth that he couldn’t even begin to fathom, your fingers once again brushing against that spot deep inside of him that has him keening.

He’s not going to last much longer; he knows that with a sudden certainty that has him trying to warn you but is more disjointed pleas for you to not stop than they are anything else.

One of his hands grasps for your shoulder blindly when he hits his peak, fingers curling into your skin as he spills himself onto your tongue. It’s blindingly hot and you can see the way he fights to keep his eyes open to watch, brow furrowed and mouth open almost like he was in some sort of pained ecstasy as you continue to finger-fuck him through it until he’s trembling.

When you stick your tongue out at him tauntingly and show him the mess he made Hui groans from deep within his chest like you’re torturing him, sits up abruptly and crashes his mouth into yours. It’s messy and dirty and he licks into your mouth aggressively, chasing all essence of himself off your tongue and onto his own with a moan that rattles your bones. You do your best to withdraw your fingers as gently as possible but he whimpers at the feeling anyway, drops his head to begin kissing a sloppy trail from your jaw down to your neck.

“You’re so dirty..” Your head is spinning and you feel short of breath - each time you inhale his chest knocks against yours as he heaves his own breaths, though he refuses to pull away from your skin for long enough for him to be able to recover as quickly. You think you feel him murmur a soft sound of agreement to your statement against your collarbone.

As soon as you can wrest a big enough part of yourself back under control you lean back, holding him securely away with your thumb and forefinger gripping his chin. Hui looks at you with an expression of wrecked reverence, the perfect picture of debauchery, and you know that right here, right now, at five something am in your bedroom, he would do literally anything you asked – that at this point in time it was no longer your room, with the window showing glimpses of the outside world, the sounds of cars going past. This place, this moment in time, it was now something disconnected and intangible, where he had given you explicit trust (perhaps foolishly, considering how inchoate your relationship was) to control and lead him. To take care of him in whatever way you see fit.

And you know that right here, right now, in this nebulous place that the two of you occupied, you would strive to make sure he never regretted giving you that permission.

“Hwitaek.” Your voice is breathier than you expected – you sounded like you’d been kissed hard. You sounded like you were in love. “Hwitaek, you are messy and crude – you are such a dirty boy, and you’ve hidden that from me for years.” He is hanging off your every word and you suddenly feel like you have a choice to make.

It’s one you don’t think about for more than a second, because you realize that you don’t need to.

“And, Hwitaek – you are so perfect for me.”

.｡..｡. .｡..｡.

“You know something?” Hui says it casually, out of nowhere, hand still rubbing nonsense patterns into the skin of your lower back after having crept underneath your shirt some twenty minutes ago just for the skin to skin contact. He’s not focused on anything else but relaxing in his bed at the dorm with you, thoughts about producing and writing lyrics and being a leader far from his mind.

“Hmm?” Your head rests on his chest, listening to his heartbeat – it’s a comforting sound, if not slightly faster than average, and when you close your eyes you can hear it mix with the soft (and sometimes not so soft) sound of some of his boys arguing or laughing or just living somewhere else in the dorm, outside his shut door.

He still hasn’t spoken so you lift your head and gaze at him, admire his features as he looks back at you with an expression so tender you’re almost afraid to have the weight of it on you. His hair is back to brown now, cut a bit shorter than before, and you stretch an arm out to run your fingers through it lazily, watch as he leans into it but keeps looking at you.

“I think you’re perfect for me, too.” His voice is warm, probably what sunshine would sound like if it was an auditory thing, and you blink at him in confusion for a few moments before you understand what he’s referencing, press your smile into his until it turns into a gentle, surging kiss.

It’s not quite an I love you, something adjacent to it, almost there but not exactly.

And neither of you say those words yet, just smile and look at each other and press kiss after sugared kiss into each other’s skin, interlace your fingers and marvel at the way affection seems to blossom for one another in both your ribcages at the simplest of actions.

The two of you weren’t in any rush. You had time.

[af1899]

FEH - So... quick thoughts on [CYL 2021]

The [Feh Channel] was released here and we’ve finally got news on artwork, base kit and stats on everyone, I’ll share some early thoughts and reactions on each of the four, plus the identity of the new [Grand Hero Battle] unit right below, feel free to read on.

First of all, you might be most interested on our latest [Grand Hero Battle] unit, that’s... Pelleas “Ashnard’s Orphan”, going to be available starting August 18th at 4:00 a.m. (GMT-3). Quite the interesting pick and the guy deserved to be added to the game for a long time, he's a [Grand Hero Battle] because he's fought (albeit optionally) in a snowy map early on part 4, and he has a smaller room for growth compared to most of the cast in the game.

Now, I’ve read he’s using a generic red tome with a lion pattern engraved on it, this could very well mean it’ll have [Fury 3] or something similar, but this is a R.I.P. for him because he gets no PRF to stand out and is just going to be another free infantry red tome in 2021... ugh... but I’ll wait and see on the data mine when it rolls out tomorrow.

Next up, kits for everyone and stats:

(As for what are the other skills other than the weapons, feel free to check the trailer linked above)

Now, I’ll order the characters from most to least anticipated by me, along with what I think of each:

Marianne: I’d say she’s the absolute winner for me but... much as I adore her, I actually feel rather mixed about this alt. She comes with [Atk/Spd Unity] which reverses field penalties on those stats and her kit+stats priming her for pure offense on player phase, she’s going to be really fast and able to take in a large portion of damage for the first strike from the enemy per combat. Not really shabby and actually really interesting colorless tome offensive unit, but I’d have liked to see a version of her wielding [Blutgang] after timeskip... I’m guessing we’ll see that in an alt like the Valentian Whitewings. Sadly, I’ve been eagerly waiting for [Atk/Spd Unity] so that my Clarisse would have it, but the worst thing that could happen is that she already has the other two passive skillas Marianne has, so I think I’ll keep waiting. As for artwork, I like it but at the same time, I feel slightly uncomfortable by the styling itself, Marianne’s expression in her special art is particularly bothersome but not to the extent I’d be upset about... it just feels odd, like maybe another artist such as Asatani Tomoyo might have proposed a take that’s more my liking.

Eirika: she’s kind of a special case here, in this ocassion, she takes up on Ephraim’s weapon and garment, I actually like this idea, since it references her strong connection with her beloved brother. The art is pretty and I find it refreshing her hair is tied into a ponytail this time; but now, in terms of gameplay, she plays similarly to Marianne, yet there are many glaring differences for sure, like lowered damage reduction and easy stats plus follow-up negation effects nulled, making of her yet another excellent [Windsweep 3] source. *Presses F in the chat for Lifis* She also carries a powercrept [Swift Sparrow 3] which I have no doubt will be inheritable, as it can heal the user by large amounts, complimenting skills with large cooldowns like [Aether] really well (do note that works when an offensive skill triggers in-battle).

Marth: the wait has been long worth for his fans, although I was never too drawn by him, I still like him from the Akaneia titles (yes, I just used an old translation all right). Although he’s just another infantry sword user, I actually appreciate he’s doning Anri’s armor, Marth’s ancestor from old times, the concept itself is actually so good and the artwork is impressive. From a gameplay standpoint: his weapon is loaded with a ton of effects that require consistent stat boosting in field for the maximum effect, fortunately, you don’t have to worry as much about positioning allies near Marth, just keeping them buffed with at least a +5 on everything, Fae with her preference weapon (no need to refine) got you covered, but having a total of 25 is enough and easy to make of him a powerhouse. Again, he also comes pre-built, without any need for investment except of course adding an assist skill like for Eirika and Marianne, slightly gearing towards enemy phase but rather flexible to build.

Gatekeeper: I never hated (or will hate) him, he’s a well revered guard in the Garreg Mach Monastery with a cheerful and dutiful attitude that I like.. I’m just not really attached to him nor find the popular meme that interesting or funny. Anyway, I have to admit that I.S. went very creative with his quotes, epithet and skill naming (and did you see that weapon’s animation? That’s crazy). His artwork is amazing too, you just have to look at all the detail on it like the castle on Gatekeeper’s background and his teammates accompanying him in his special attack. As for gameplay, he’s pure enemy phase, a strong and durable mixed wall with tendence towards buffing his physical defense and carries an ability to block the enemy’s advancement and warping skills within an area centered on him, plus he also offers a little support as well, a rather interesting unit indeed, I don’t think he’ll be too annoying or even a common threat in PvP, but he might see use in some situations.

As for my free summon, I’m probably picking Eirika actually, I quite like her and that new A-skill plus [Atk/Spd Menace] on regular pool is looking spicy, perhaps my Nyx is going to love these, but I’ll wait for data mine to confirm inheritance restrictions on all new non-PRF skills.

Oh, I almost forgot but we’re getting a {Dragonflower} stat boost cap increase as follows:

And these rewards tomorrow:

I like this because my Sonya will have 69 base attack for a month but again my maxed out projects will be incomplete aaaaaaaaa.

[theworldthatneverwas]

Between Part and Meet - Trio

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ephemer & Player Character & Skuld (Kingdom Hearts)

***

“Do you have a reservation, kupo?” the Moogle at the host stand asks you.

“Um, yes, I think so,” you say. “It might be under Ephemer?”

The Moogle scans through the list and nods. “You’re the first to arrive. Come this way, kupo.”

Feeling a little out of place, you follow the Moogle to a comfortable-looking booth with a frosted window overlooking the streets of Daybreak Town. You slide into the booth and are handed a menu and a bundle of utensils. “Can I get you anything to drink while you wait, kupo?” the Moogle asks.

“Um, just water is fine,” you reply a bit distractedly. The Moogle nods and floats away, leaving you to glance over the menu.

You’ve always been the early one when meeting up with Ephemer, and often when meeting with Skuld, too. It just feels nicer being early than it does being right on time or late. But this is the first time the three of you are meeting up outside of the clock tower, and not at anyone’s home. You hope they aren’t so busy with Union leader stuff that they forget about your plans together tonight at this restaurant.

You’ve even dressed up for the occasion – not too much, of course, but you’re not just wearing your usual mission clothes, either. Chirithy had helped you pick out your outfit and had been patient as you tried on different articles of clothing until you settled on this one.

You glance at the menu items without really reading them. You haven’t eaten at a restaurant in ages. So long, in fact, that you wonder briefly if there are any etiquette rules you might have forgotten. The Moogle comes back with your glass of water and you glance around at the other restaurant-goers. Many seem to be eating together in pairs, you realize. There’s a rather rowdy group of friends in a corner near the door, and a table of people who seem to have finished their food long ago and are just sitting and talking. That seems nice, you think. Just having somewhere to sit and talk with your friends.

There’s a tap on your shoulder and you look up with a jolt, then relax as you recognize the smiling face of Skuld. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting long,” she says, sliding into the seat across from you. “Ephemer’s on his way too, but he told me to go without him in case you came early so you wouldn’t be sitting alone. We both guessed you’d be the first to arrive.”

“Typical,” you say, waving your hand dismissively. “But – wait I didn’t get a good look at you before you sat down. That’s a really nice shirt! Can I see the whole outfit?”

Skuld’s smile is radiant as she shimmies out of the booth to stand so you can see the whole outfit. Her usual skirt and zippered top are traded out for a lovely top with a high neckline and high-waisted pants. She’s even tied her hair into an elegant updo, though you can see that she hasn't traded out her familiar star-shaped studs. “You look wonderful!” you say. “I’m flattered you’d take the time to put your hair up like that, too. Did it take long?”

“I got Lauriam to help, actually,” she says, sitting back down and turning her head so you can admire the delicate twists of her hair. “He’s got all kinds of weird skills like that. He walked past me trying to do it myself and offered to help, and well, here we are.”

“He seems like a pretty interesting guy,” you say, propping up your cheek on your hand. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help him with his little sister. Have you found out anything more about her?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid.”

Just then, a Moogle comes by with another water for Skuld. “Need a bit more time before you decide, kupo?” they ask, and you both nod in unison.

“I haven’t even looked at the menu,” you admit, pulling it up in front of you again. “Is there anything you recommend?”

“Hmm…” Skuld muses, running a finger down some of the options. “I’ve heard they have good spinach dip. And that their pastas are huge so it’s good to share.”

“Those both sound good. We could all get something different and try each others’, too.”

“I hope you two haven’t ordered without me.”

You look up from the menu to see Ephemer, smiling broadly. He slides into the booth next to you and you look him up and down to take in his outfit. Of all things, you’re most surprised that his red scarf is nowhere in sight, though he’s wearing a collared shirt that’s a similar shade of crimson. He’s even tucked his shirt into proper dress pants. His sleeves are rolled up, though his usual gloves are gone, too. It’s a rather nice look on him.

“Wow, Eph, you really cleaned up,” Skuld teases, leaning across the table.

“Excuse you, I always look this dashing – I just have specific wardrobe choices I like to keep to. Gotta maintain a certain aesthetic.”

You grin. “You look really nice. Your hair’s even less poofy than usual.” And it’s true, too – his normally chaotically curly hair is surprisingly tame today.

He turns to you and raises a hand to lightly pat at his own hair. “It took a lot more effort than I usually put into it,” he admits. He takes a moment to look at your own outfit and smiles. “You look pretty nice, yourself. Really nice, I mean. It suits you.”

You find your face growing warm at the compliment and hide it by directing everyone’s attention to the menu again. “So, what are we eating? Skuld and I were thinking we could each get something different to share.”

“Ooh, I like that,” Ephemer says, rotating the menu to read it better. “Can we share some of these appetisers first, maybe? And then get a bigger meal.”

You gesture across the table. “Skuld was just saying the spinach dip is supposed to be good. And the pasta portions are really big.”

“Okay, let’s do the spinach dip then, and maybe two of the pastas?”

You and Skuld both nod in agreement. “Sounds good.”

Just then, a Moogle comes by with a third glass of water for Ephemer and asks, “Does everyone know what they’d like to order, kupo?”

“Uh… I’ll let you guys each pick a pasta,” you say, and they both quickly study the menu. “We’ll have some spinach dip to start.”

“Let’s go with this… noc… no-chee and sweet potatoes pasta,” Ephemer says, and you chuckle under your breath as you look at the entry he’s pointing to on the menu.

“The sweet potato and hazelnut gnocchi,” you correct, and Ephemer looks a bit bewildered as he studies the word again, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh that sounds good, okay, and then how about this smoked salmon alfredo for the second pasta,” Skuld says to the Moogle, pointing at the menu before handing it over to them. “We’d like to split them so if you could just bring us a couple of side plates that would be excellent.”

“Understood, kupo. Can I get you anything else to drink?”

Ephemer suddenly looks hopeful. “Do you have milkshakes?” he asks in an unusually small voice.

Though it’s hard to understand Moogle expressions, you think this one might be smiling. “Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry milkshakes, kupo.”

“I’ll have a vanilla milkshake, then,” he says.

The Moogle nods. “I’ll be back with it soon, kupo!”

Skuld shakes her head at Ephemer. “A milkshake, huh?”

“I’m always up for ice cream,” he says. He bumps your shoulder with his own. “Wonder what a sea salt ice cream milkshake would taste like.”

You shrug. “Probably much the same as the ice cream itself. Sweet and a bit salty.”

“Do you think ice cream is hard to make? It seems like it would be.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever tried it. Might need a special machine or something. I’m not sure how it gets so fluffy.”

“If it’s anything like whipped cream,” Skuld chimes in, “I bet it needs a lot of mixing.”

In short order, Ephemer’s milkshake is delivered. He takes an eager sip from the straw and lets out a satisfied “ahh” before he pushes it towards you. “Want some?”

You take a sip yourself. It’s wonderfully creamy and vanilla-y. “Yum,” you say, licking your lips.

Ephemer offers his drink to Skuld in turn and she takes a small sip. “Oh that is good,” she says. “Now I almost wish I’d gotten one, too.”

“Excuse me!” Ephemer says abruptly, stopping a nearby Moogle who was passing by your booth. “Could we get two more milkshakes?”

“What kind would you like, kupo?”

“Wha – Ephemer, I don’t actually need one–” Skuld splutters, reddening under the Moogle’s expectant gaze.

He shakes his head at her. “Just go for it!” he says. “You may as well while we’re here.”

“Um, one strawberry milkshake,” you say politely. Ephemer grins at you and Skuld sighs before giving in.

“Okay, and one… one chocolate milkshake.”

“Got it. I’ll be right back, kupo.”

Skuld stretches her arms out over the table. “I shouldn’t let you guys convince me to buy things I don’t need,” she says.

You shrug. “I think it’s good to treat yourself, too. If you only ever bought things you absolutely needed you’d have nothing to look forward to.”

“I was just going to say you should buy milkshakes because they’re delicious but that sounds much more reasonable.” Ephemer takes another sip of his milkshake. “Soo good.”

Skuld leans against the back of the booth. “True. On both accounts, really.”

The Moogle returns with your requested milkshakes and you take an eager sip of yours. “Oh the strawberry flavour is so nice,” you say, sliding it along the table to Ephemer. “Try some?”

Skuld takes a sip of her own drink and smiles. “I mean, it is good. Here, try mine too.” You swap drinks. The chocolate has almost a hint of bitterness to it, and it, too, is very tasty.

The three of you make small talk until your spinach dip is delivered not long after. You scoop some of the warm cheesy dip onto a piece of toasted flatbread and blow on it before taking a tiny bite. It’s very hot, but also pleasantly creamy and flavourful.

“So Ephemer,” Skuld says as she scoops some of the dip onto a piece of bread, “can we talk about how you’ve never seen the word ‘gnocchi’ before?” You snort with laughter, suddenly remembering.

Ephemer is indignant. “I have seen it before! I’ve just never had to say it aloud!”

To Ephemer’s credit, it’s not an easy word to understand the pronunciation of, but it’s too fun to tease him like this. “Do you know what gnocchi is?”

“I do! It’s like little potato pasta things. Isn’t it?” He suddenly seems a bit unsure of himself and looks to you for support.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much right,” you laugh, taking another bite of your appetiser. “How did he say it again?” You turn to Skuld. “'No-chee'?”

She grins and Ephemer ducks his head slightly under the pretense of taking another sip of his milkshake. You can see that his cheeks have gone a bit pink. You pat his leg under the table. “Aw, it’s okay, sunshine. We’re just having a bit of fun. I think the Moogle knew what you wanted, anyway.”

He leans his head against your shoulder in mock grief. “All I wanted was some pasta.”

You pat his hair gently. It’s extremely soft today, perhaps having something to do with however he got his curls to look more tame. You reach forward to grab another piece of bread to dunk in the spinach dip and Ephemer sits back up so he can help himself as well. The appetiser wasn’t too big, and it’s just enough to satisfy your hunger a teeny bit until you get the pasta dishes.

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Skuld says, pushing the dirty plates off to one side so she can reach a hand towards you over the table. “I finally saw Brain make food today. Or well, not really make food. But I did catch him eating some hard-boiled eggs? So I assume he made them himself.”

“Oh good, proof he actually does eat sometimes.” You trace your thumb over the back of Skuld’s hand. “I wonder if he ever goes out to eat. Do you think he hoards food in his room?”

She looks thoughtful. “Honestly the only places I ever see him are in the control room, in the main meeting room, or in his own room. So I can’t imagine he just heads out on the town to buy food very often.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Ephemer adds, propping up his cheek on his elbow. “He left with Lauriam one time to go somewhere in Daybreak Town. I don’t know if they went shopping, exactly, but they went out to do something .”

“Maybe the reason he always leaves fighting monsters to the rest of us is because he never has any energy due to lack of food.”

“Does he drink coffee?” you ask, trying to think if you’d seen him with a mug or a cup of anything the last time you’d been at the clock tower.

“I… don’t… think so? He might. There isn’t a coffee machine in the common kitchen area though, so he’d have to have it in his room.” She looks at Ephemer. “I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen him have a glass of water when he’s working.”

“Oh, no, one time I offered him a cup and he was scandalized. Told me off for even thinking of putting water anywhere near all of the computers. Which I guess kind of makes sense. We often have a bunch of papers all over the desks too so it would be bad if we spilled something on them.”

“Hmm,” you say, tracing along a dark line in the wood of the table top with your free hand. “Do you think it’d be weird if we tried to get together and have a meal sometime? Like, all the Union leaders. Or would that be extra weird to have me along since I’m not really part of the leaders…” You trail off, wondering if you’ve overstepped.

Skuld squeezes your other hand reassuringly. “No, I think that sounds great! I love your cooking. We could all try to pitch in and have a potluck, maybe!”

“Yeah that sounds excellent!” Ephemer agrees, nodding. “I’m always up for good food.”

“You’d have to make something too,” you point out. “It’s a potluck.”

“I can make food!” he insists. “You two have no faith in me.”

You and Skuld exchange a grin. “I’ll believe it when I taste it,” you tease.

Your food arrives just then, and you let go of Skuld’s hand to clear a space in the middle of the table for it to be set down. Both pastas are steaming and look wonderful. The Moogle places some extra plates down as well and picks up your spinach dip dishes to take away while another Moogle comes by with a cheese grater.

“Can I offer you some Parmesan cheese, kupo?” they ask, and Ephemer eagerly offers forth the smoked salmon dish.

“Yes, please!” he says, then looks to you and Skuld to confirm this is okay. Skuld shrugs and nods and you agree. The Moogle grates a nice little pile of Parmesan shavings onto the pasta and departs.

“Oh I am so ready to dig into this,” Ephemer says, unwrapping his fork from the napkin and scooping some of the nearest pasta onto his plate.

“Skuld, what are these little green things?” you ask, patting Ephemer’s arm so he can pass you a plate as well.

She inspects it for a moment. They’re about the size of peas but darker and a bit more leafy-looking. “Ohh these are the capers,” she explains, and pops one into her mouth. “Yeah. They’re like tiny flower buds.”

“Huh. I don’t know if I’ve ever had them before.” You scoop some of the pasta onto your dish and spear a caper experimentally on your fork before putting it in your mouth. “Hmm. Kinda salty? It’s good though.”

Skuld nods. “It goes well with the salmon.”

“Gonna try some of the no-chee?” you tease, gesturing to the other pasta plate.

“Yes I find I’m rather fond of no-chee,” she laughs and helps herself to the gnocchi. Ephemer makes a pouty face at the two of you but says nothing, his mouth full of pasta.

You take a sip of your strawberry milkshake – nearly done – and scoop some of the gnocchi out onto your plate as well. The hazelnuts give it a pleasant, earthy flavour along with the sweet potatoes. It’s a nice combination. “Good pick, Ephemer,” you say after swallowing your mouthful. “Might have to try making this sometime.”

“I might not know how to pronounce it, but I can still appreciate good food,” he says with a grin.

“Oh hang on, there’s a plate of garlic bread here, too,” Skuld says, moving the pasta dishes aside to put the plate in the center of the table. “Aw and there are three pieces even though we just got the two pastas, that’s nice. Okay, everyone gets one.”

The garlic bread seems to have been made from a rounded bun of sorts, and it’s wonderfully crispy on the flat side but fluffy and soft on the rounded side. “I might have to just order a basket of garlic bread the next time I come here,” you say after you’ve devoured your piece. “That was excellent. ”

Skuld drags her straw around the edge of her glass to get the last of her milkshake. “I think all the food we’ve had has been excellent. I’d come back.”

“I’d like that,” Ephemer says after swallowing a mouthful of food. “I mean, I just like eating food with you guys.”

“Is it because you don’t want to cook for yourself?” Skuld teases.

“No! I just like having familiar things.” This isn’t a particularly surprising sentiment coming from the boy who’d eaten the exact same flavour of ice cream with you day in and day out for nearly a year.

“Maybe we should try different places each time,” you offer. “You know. In case we find other foods we really like.”

Ephemer falls silent as he considers this but Skuld nods. “I like that. And then if we have a favourite place we can always come back to it.” She looks to Ephemer for agreement.

“Yeah… okay. When would we go? Once a week?”

Skuld shakes her head in surprise, glancing at Ephemer. “I don’t know if either of us can consistently set aside that kind of time. Maybe every three weeks? We can always try to get together on the off weeks, obviously. We just wouldn’t be going to restaurants.”

You feel a little twinge of sadness at the suggested schedule – surely Skuld and Ephemer will be seeing each other a lot more often than you’ll be seeing them in between meetups – but… well, any time you can hang out with them is good. “That’s all right by me,” you say.

“Great, it’s a plan. Ephemer and I will figure out a day that works best and let you know as soon as we can.”

Unexpectedly, you find yourself trying to avoid their gazes and look down at your plate under the pretense of trying to scoop a hazelnut onto your fork. It’s fine that Skuld and Ephemer have Union leader stuff to do. Obviously. They’ll let you know as soon as they’re free. “Yeah, sure.” The words feel uncomfortable in your tight throat.

Luckily, Skuld doesn’t seem to notice. You chance a glimpse up at her and she’s back to eating the last of her pasta. Ephemer bumps his shoulder against yours and smiles radiantly and you wonder if he noticed your reaction. You do your best to smile back and quickly turn away, picking up your near-empty glass of strawberry milkshake as though you think you can get more ice cream out of it. It’s fine. You’re fine.

“Well, that’s all for me,” Skuld declares, setting down her fork. “Ephemer, you want the last of the gnoc – ahem – the no-chee?”

Ephemer rolls his eyes at her. “Sure, I’ll finish it. You want any more before I take it?” he asks, offering the plate to you. You shake your head and he scoops the last of the gnocchi onto his plate. “Excellent.”

You lean against the back of the booth as well. “I’m full too. That was really yum.”

“I might have to try making gnocchi one of these times,” Skuld says thoughtfully. “I don’t think it would be too hard. Don’t you just cook the potatoes and then add some flour and stuff?”

You shrug. “I’ve never tried. You might have to cook it after you mix everything together, or maybe you can just use it in a dish as soon as you’re done, I’m not sure. I’d want a recipe before I try making it for the first time.”

Ephemer puts down his fork at last with a satisfied sigh, pushing his plate away from himself. “I mean, if you two want to cook no-kee then I wouldn’t complain about trying it.”

“Gnocchi,” Skuld corrects offhand, smiling, “and I’m sure you wouldn’t mind eating free food, huh?”

“I’m just saying, I wouldn’t pass it up.”

A Moogle comes by to pick up your dirty dishes. “Can I interest you in any dessert, kupo?”

Ephemer looks longingly at the dessert menu but you and Skuld both shake your heads. “I’m really full, but thank you,” you say.

Ephemer sighs. “Me too. Maybe next time though.”

The Moogle nods. “And how would you like to pay tonight, kupo? All on one bill, or separate?”

“Oh, uhh…”

“One bill is fine,” you interrupt. The Moogle nods and leaves.

“How much do I owe you?” Skuld asks, digging in her bag, but you shake your head.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “I’ll get this one. Then we’ll just have to go out again so you guys can pay me back.”

“Are you sure?” Ephemer asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, don’t sweat it.”

He slumps back in his seat. “Well, okay then.”

You pat his leg. “It’s my ploy to get you guys to hang out with me more,” you stage-whisper, ostensibly joking but also secretly hoping that they really will make sure you go out at least once more together.

The Moogle comes by with the bill and you hand over some munny, thanking them for the lovely meal. “I guess we should head out,” Skuld says, looking around. “It’s pretty busy so we shouldn’t take up an extra table.”

“Yeah, that’s… of course.” You glance at Ephemer and he slides out of the booth to let you out too. The three of you wind your way around the tables and out onto the streets of Daybreak Town.

“Thanks for the night out, you two,” Skuld says as the restaurant door closes behind you. She pulls on a motorcycle jacket on top of her fancy outfit, making it look more casual, but also somehow more… Skuld. Ephemer rolls down his sleeves but otherwise doesn’t seem as bothered by the cool breeze. Typical.

“This was really nice,” you say, stretching your arms out in front of yourself. “Thanks for coming.”

Unexpectedly, Ephemer pulls the three of you into a hug. “I’m glad things worked out that we could all meet up again,” he says.

“I… yeah, me too,” you say, wrapping your arms around the two of them. You’re not quite sure if he means he’s glad you could meet up tonight or if he’s grateful that, after all that has happened, despite being separated, the three of you managed to end up in the same world. You're glad for both, in any case.

“Well, I guess we should be off,” Skuld says when you break apart. “Do you want us to walk you home?”

Yes. “No, that’s all right,” you say. “I live in the other direction, anyway. I’ll see you guys soon!”

They smile and wave at you as they turn to walk in the other direction. You walk boldly through the streets, not looking back until you’re sure they must be out of sight, then sit down on the curb on a small side street. “Lucky?” you call tentatively.

Your Spirit companion poofs into existence beside you in the form of the fluffiest pink dog you’ve ever seen. They crawl up into your lap and their pink tongue laps at your chin. “No, no, it’s fine, settle down,” you say, pushing them down. Lucky quivers in your lap, their tiny tail thumping against your knees. You stroke their head softly. “I just needed a hug. And I didn’t want to let Chirithy know. You won’t tell them, will you Lucky?”

Lucky’s pink tongue lolls out of their mouth for a moment as they pant, then they lay their head down on your arm and look up at you with big eyes. You run a hand along their fluffy fur absentmindedly.

“I just… I think I get jealous of Skuld and Ephemer hanging out? I don’t know if that’s what it is, exactly. I just know I feel upset when I think about them hanging out without me. And I know a lot of it is unavoidable – obviously they’re both Union leaders, so they’re going to see each other around the tower and have Union leader meetings and stuff. So it’s stupid to get upset over it. Right? I feel like I’m just bringing the mood down because I want to spend time with them, too.”

Lucky’s quiet in your lap and you continue to stroke their fur. “I don’t want them to feel bad, either. I know they already feel bad enough for keeping things from me about the Keyblade War and all that. And I really, really want things to go back to normal.” You sigh deeply and Lucky’s tail starts to wag again. “Yeah, okay, we can go home,” you say, ushering them off your lap. Their shape changes to that of a little wolf, like they want to protect you as you walk home. You reach down and pat them between the ears. “Thanks.”

*

Ephemer turns to look back at you as he and Skuld walk in the other direction towards the tower, but you’re already partway down the street, confidently strolling away. “Did you think… did you think Peach seemed a bit troubled back there?” he asks.

“Just now, you mean?” Skuld asks, turning to him in surprise. “No, not really. Did you?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. I just thought they seemed a bit sad about something.”

“Well, we can ask the next time we all get together. Make sure they’re all right.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I hope we’re not too busy this week.”

***

Find Between Part and Meet on AO3! It updates every other Tuesday. This is the first chapter out of 6. I also have several other KHUx fics there under theworldthatneverwas, so be sure to check them out if you enjoyed this one!

Fic summary: You, Ephemer, and Skuld are back together again in Daybreak Town, but adjusting to normal life after the Keyblade War is easier said than done. And with Ephemer and Skuld so busy with their Union leader duties, what will it take to build this friendship up to weather any storm?

[artificialqueens]

Please Don’t Take My Crown Just Because You Can (Olivia Lux x Trixie Mattel) - Plastiquedoll

read on ao3  👑

Summary: It was a bad idea. Trixie knew it from the second she signed up for it. Her stomach hadn’t been quiet from that moment on, she could barely get any sleep the previous night and her hands were constantly sweaty. How could she let her mother convince her of entering a beauty pageant? …Another beauty pageant. That was what she thought until she met Olivia and maybe -just maybe- her day got much better.

A/N: hi there! this is my entry for the rare pair fic challenge! I hope you like it <3

my train of thought for this story was the following one: rare pair challenge > 21 Jolene by Dolly Parton > Dolly Parton Trixie Mattel music > Dolly Parton movie Dumplin > Dumplin movie with beauty pageants > (break to remember that one roast joke about Ginger working with Jennifer Anniston) > pageant queens > line of the song about the Jolene’s > Olivia has a beautiful smile > Trixie was kind of obsessed with her on the pit stop > Trixie x Olivia > rare pair > Trixie x Olivia pageant queens au with Jolene somewhere

It was a bad idea.

Trixie knew it from the second she signed up for it. Her stomach hadn’t been quiet from that moment on, she could barely get any sleep the previous night and her hands were constantly sweaty.

How could she let her mother convince her of entering a beauty pageant?

…Another beauty pageant.

Only because her older sister was a pageant queen it didn’t mean she was cut from the same mold.

Even during the prior weeks when she tried that beautiful nightgown covered in sequins that fit her so well, she didn’t feel fully comfortable in it. Even in the talent category –one she was supposed to excel in since she had chosen singing- she wasn’t completely sure of the song she had picked and don’t get her start on the swimsuit category.

It was a nightmare.

Now she had paid the fee it was too late to regret it. She was already in the building, she had signed the damn application form and she had a number assigned –twelve- there was no way out even when all her senses were tingling and her body kept telling her to run away.

She took a deep breath and walked into the dressing room where her fellow competitors were already dolling up. She saw a mother stretching a corset so much the boobs of the girl were in a different color than her face and also a girl with a professional makeup team of three people doing her face, hair, and nails. This was no joke for some of them.

Of course, Trixie had been looked down on the moment she showed up and it was intimidating to walk among those trained pageant girls who whispered and tittered when she passed by their stations. Some of them might have identified her, some of them might be guessing what she was doing there.

Luckily, she found her mirror and hangers to be located in an isolated area near one of the back doors. At least she could get ready in peace.

Her mother walked into the room and it got as quiet as a church. The heads turned and immediately recognized the former Miss USA even after all those years, they also knew Trixie’s sister, Pearl, the current Miss Teen America; with both proud achievements under her arm, her mother solemnly crossed the place to her station with a couple of makeup bags on her hands. She greeted everyone with her fakest smile and then she looked at her daughter.

“Ronan will get your stuff in a moment.” She caressed Trixie’s hair. “Brush your hair, it’s dry.” She said with disdain. “And pinch your cheeks, you look ill.”

Forget that part of getting ready in peace.

Trixie instinctively grabbed a brush while her mother went mingle –and collected information about the other girls.

Suddenly, a voice surprised her.

“Hi!”

Trixie turned around and froze for a moment.

In the contiguous mirror labeled number thirteen, there was a girl with a bathrobe, rollers on her dark brown hair and by far the most beautiful smile Trixie had ever seen, the kind that made people go weak on their knees, with her not being the exception.

She’s beauty and she’s grace, she takes my breath away.

She looked like she had just arrived as well. Her makeup bags were closed and her dresses were in bags.

“It seems we’re going to be neighbors today.” She kept flashing her dazzling smile.

“Yeah… I mean… Hi, I’m Trixie.”

“Olivia, Liv…” She shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Trixie. If you don’t mind, may I ask you a question?”

Trixie would later find out that was Olivia’s catchphrase.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Where can I find a plug for my phone?”

“Behind the mirror.”

“Oh, thank you… by the way I love your hair.”

Trixie touched her messy blonde hair she hadn’t even styled yet and wondered if that was a tactic but Olivia seemed genuinely nice. The girl sat on her chair and started doing her makeup, -Trixie needed to do the same but she also wanted to keep talking to her.

But before she could say something else, her mother came back with the bags with her outfits.

“Bad news is that Violet is here but maybe you can beat her in the talent portion, good news is that there was a blizzard and Naomi couldn’t take the flight.” She sounded way too excited about that.

“Jeez, mom…”

“What? Know your competitors.” She stared at Olivia. “And who do we have here? I’m afraid I don’t remember your name, darling.”

“I’m Olivia Lux, Mrs. Mattel. We haven’t met but it’s such an honor.”

Her mother smiled and shook her hand. “Lovely.” She looked at Trixie again. “We have a lot of work to do.”

“I’ll do my makeup.” She began taking her brushes out of the bag.

“Good idea, don’t apply too much the judges didn’t like it last time.”

At that point, Trixie just wanted her mother to be gone for a hot second since that was the only moment she could get to relax while doing something she enjoyed and she couldn’t fully do that under her eagle eye. She was already stressed by the rehearsals and the competition, she didn’t need any more pressure over her shoulders.

As if her thoughts were heard, one of the other mothers called Trixie’s mother’s name and she made a fuss to say hi to her and gossip some more.

“Whoa, your mother is a legend.” Olivia whispered, still a bit thunderstruck.

“I guess…” Trixie sighed. “Sorry you had to hear what she said earlier, she gets a little… in the pageant mood.”

What Trixie wanted to say was «she’s like a shark and pageants are bloodbaths».

Olivia just gestured with her hands downplaying it. “Most mothers here are like that… don’t worry.”

“By the way, where are you from? I don’t think I have seen you here before.”

Way to go, Trixie, what brings you to San Antonio, Texas to this room full of nasty people and ugly hot weather?

“I’m from New Jersey but I think the reason we hadn’t met it’s because… being completely honest, this is my third pageant.”

Trixie almost had a seizure. “What?”

She looked so calm and collected she couldn’t have guessed it was only her third time participating.

Olivia giggled. “The first beauty pageant I participated was as a dare from one of my friends back in New Jersey and I won Miss Polaris… then I tried my luck in the Miss Natural Beauty in New York and also won.” She fidgeted with her rings. “I hadn’t gone this far until now and I’m actually considering going full-time… but I don’t have many references to ask advice from.”

And she wanted to ask Trixie? Out of all girls in that room?

“I have to admit that’s pretty impressive.”

“Thank you.”

“Pageant world is… wow… exhausting? It requires a lot of effort and dedication. My mother put my sister and me in pageants since we were little so we grew up in this environment so we’re used to the viciousness of it.”

Just to think they could’ve made it into Toddlers and Tiaras if it wasn’t canceled a year before their pageant debut.

Olivia looked at her with wide eyes, expectant.

“It is also a nice place to share and form sincere bonds with other girls, like a sisterhood.”

The girl grinned. “That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah…”

“I must admit that the scholarship program of Miss Teen America is also what dragged me here today. I need to gather some more experience before even considering giving it a try and having a good score here could help me to qualify for the nationals.”

“That’s the dream…” Trixie knew about it, she had been prepared all her life to be the following to reign after her sister.

Trixie did her makeup in almost record time, she knew they had counted minutes inside the dressing room and they hadn’t rehearsed the walk or the places on the stage –they barely had some time to try the acoustic and do something similar to a soundcheck before lunch.

She needed a minute away from that place or she was going to have a breakdown. When her mother wasn’t looking, she sneaked out to the emergency stairs that had a «DO NOT CROSS» yellow sign… perfect.

To her surprise, she wasn’t the only person who had had the same idea.

“Hey, Violet.”

The girl with black hair in a purple robe with her name embroidered –she probably had her famous corset underneath- lifted her gaze. She was sitting on the stairs with a cigarette in one hand and her phone in the other.

“Needed a break?”

Trixie nodded. “I swear there’s something inside there that sucks the air of the room.”

“It’s not the air, it’s the former pageant queens sucking the youth out of your body.”

The blonde cackled. “Most likely.”

“Where’s your sister? She won Miss Teen and now she’s too good for an open call pageant?”

“Didn’t you hear? She sprained her ankle skiing a couple of weeks ago…”

“I heard that.” Violet rolled her eyes. “Now tell me what really happened.”

“She sprained her ankle trying to climb the window of her room after she sneaked to go to a college party.”

Ladies, gentlemen, and folks… Miss Teen America!

Violet snickered. “Dumb whore.”

She offered Trixie a smoke but the blonde shook her head.

“It’d fuck my throat for the talent section.”

“Maybe that’s the strategy.” A cloud of smoke came from her lips.

Trixie laughed. Violet had never needed to use a dirty tactic to win. She simply didn’t give a fuck and that was the reason Trixie liked her and the reason they had developed a certain level of camaraderie… it could be even called a friendship. Maybe what she had said to Olivia wasn’t as far from reality as she thought, maybe there was room to bond over the trauma of lost childhood and terrible mothers.

“Are you doing your baton routine?”

The raven-haired girl nodded. “This time, with a spark…” She did jazz hands, ironically.

“They are letting you do the fire thing?”

“God bless Texas or something like that.”

“I thought it was unsafe.”

“Nonsense… I could do it blindfolded… actually…”

“Pyro psychopath.”

“What about you? I saw your guitar in the dressing room. Are you finally going to sing one of your SoundCloud songs?”

Trixie sighed. “I wish… Mrs. Barbara Mattel won’t let me. She says it isn’t appealing to the public like going for a well-known classic.”

“Let me guess, Dolly Parton?”

“Yeah…”

“It’s always «yes» not «yeah», Miss Mattel.” She mocked.

“Fuck off, you skinny bitch.”

“You say it as if it’s something wrong with that.”

“I’m always hoping for you to faint during the run on the stage.”

“Because that’s the only way you could win.”

They laughed at each other. Everything was so ridiculous they needed the laughter to make things lighter.

“Well, you have competition with the singing thing…” Violet commented.

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“That new girl from Jersey… the one that looks like she came out from a toothpaste commercial.”

“Olivia?” She asked with disbelief… well, it shouldn’t have been any surprise since she seemed like the type of girl who could do anything anyway.

“And she plays piano too.” Violet dumped the ashes of her cigarette over the stairs but she was also adding fuel to the fire.

Fuck.

Maybe Trixie was very good at singing but the judges always looked with good eyes when someone played a more classical instrument like violin or piano, it made the girls look more sophisticated than an acoustic guitar.

She was truly underestimating Olivia for being the rookie in the room but if she was as good as Violet had said, she might have reasons to be worried.

Back in the dressing room, her mother nagged her for disappearing before getting the curlers on. She had her hair pulled and entangled in the plastic tubes under a pink cap. Some girls had left in rounds to the rehearsal of the talents that couldn’t make it in the morning, Olivia among them.

With her not being there to bright the room a little, Trixie felt alone. She knew she had just met Olivia but there was something so radiant and charming about her that she couldn’t shake off her mind. That… and the fact that Trixie was just being gay as fuck while yearning for a competitor.

To relieve her anxiety, she lulled herself with her autoharp and one of her songs that wouldn’t make it into the program.

“Whoa… that was beautiful.” The voice of the girl woke her from her reverie.

She hadn’t noticed Olivia had returned since she was so mesmerized with the music, closing her eyes and feeling it with her heart.

Olivia clapped and smiled, even brighter than before.

“Is what you’re going to play on today’s talent show?”

Trixie shook her head. “It’s mine, actually. I don’t think the public would respond as you just did.”

“What are you saying? It sounds terrific… I wish I could write songs too, what a great talent.”

“You’re just being polite… pageant polite.”

“I’m not…” Olivia reached for her hand and Trixie felt butterflies flapping on her stomach, no stage fright related. “Your music is wonderful, I mean it.”

She didn’t want to let go of Olivia’s hand but at that moment, there was a commotion in the dressing room that attracted all stares.

It was Alyssa Edwards, the hostess of the pageant and mother of the current Miss Teen Venus. Trixie had overheard her mother calling her things before but the second she walked in, everyone shut up. She didn’t look content at all.

“Miss Atlanta…” She called. “The color one.”

Violet.

“Violet has been disqualified from today’s competition.” She announced, as serious as she could be about it.

“What?!” Trixie looked around, she was nowhere to be seen.

“There has been an accident during the rehearsal of her talent and since the board and the judges consider it to be too dangerous and the lil’ miss refuses to change it… there’s no other choice but to continue without her.” She explained, reading a piece of paper she had in her hands. “Also, Miss Violet argues there had been some type of sabotage involved…”

The word sabotage made the room explode into an uproar. Alyssa was only the messenger but the women assembled in front of her demanding explanations and repeating how nonsensical the accusation was.

“Ladies, ladies…” She tried to get their attention but finally the only way she could do it was whistling loud enough to leave everyone deaf. “Ladies! I know this is a severe accusation but I promise you we’ll be taking action into the matter and proceeding with the corresponding investigation. This is not the image of any Miss Teen Venus and if the allegations turn to be true there will be a prosecution and punishment of such acts.” She shushed a pageant mom that was about to protest. “Margaret, sit your ass down no one wants to hear it.”

Trixie’s mother looked ecstatic. “Yes!” She celebrated in a lower voice.

Trixie just shook her head.

Violet returned to the dressing room wearing what to Violet was pedestrian clothing to pick her things about half an hour later, she looked done with everything and everyone there. She didn’t even mind the stares and whispers –even during rough times she shone for her confidence-, her mother behind her, however, kept ranting about the level of unprofessionalism showed and how they were going to regret it.

Trixie approached her station when things were cooling down a little.

“Hey, what the fuck happened?”

Violet sighed. “I don’t know, there was something wrong with the baton or the kerosene, this has never happened before.” She crossed her arms on her chest. “My mother thinks there’s a conspiracy going on and I just want to sleep on the plane and cuddle my cat back at home.”

“But like… do you really think someone deliberately tried to mess up with your act?”

“I have no clue but… I never make mistakes and that’s not an exaggeration.” She gathered her things. “If someone’s really sabotaging people you should watch your back.” She put a pair of designer sunglasses on.

“…we don’t need this trashy fifth category contest; Violet has a modeling contract…”

“I have to get my mom out of that argument. See you at the nationals I guess.”

“No «break a leg» or something?”

“You don’t need my help with that.” She waved her hair on her way out.

“Bitch…”

Alyssa called them for the runway rehearsal a couple of minutes after.

“Tracy,” She pointed at Trixie. “you go before Peronka.”

Trixie and Priyanka exchanged a look. To be fair, Priyanka was a newbie but still, it was funny that Alyssa confused their names so badly.

“Olivia, you go next.”

Of course, she remembered her name.

They paraded in their robes with curlers and clips on their hair pretending it was the real thing. They had to smile, wave, stuck their stomachs, stretch their shoulders, elongate their necks and look absolutely fabulous while wearing heels.

Olivia, just like the pageant she had won before, was a natural. She gracefully walked upstairs, sashayed all over the stage, and posed like a professional.

Trixie couldn’t keep her eyes off her to the point Priyanka had to elbow her to move.

“It got you hard this time…” She murmured.

“Shut up, Peronka.”

The first round they all had to wear the same simple v-neckline blue dress –not Trixie’s favorite color to wear- with a sad matching pump but it was just one lap to show their charms while playing a corny song about being Miss Teen Venus and all the qualities that came with it –did anyone else notice that it sounded oddly similar to Dancing Queen? Because Trixie did.

They also had a short presentation and because of that reason, Trixie didn’t let her mother rub vaseline on her teeth before stepping out the stage.

“Good evening, everyone. My name is Trixie Mattel, I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I enjoy playing the acoustic guitar and composing my own songs. The people who inspire me the most are Michelle Obama, Dolly Parton, and my mom whom I love very much.” She smiled widely.

The judges nodded and wrote something down.

Alyssa in her all glitter, all glam golden gown and perfect huge blonde hair read the card, and after Trixie was done she commented. “Isn’t she lovely, folks?”

Claps from the audience and then her cue to leave the center of the stage and get in line next to Priyanka –always keeping the poise and the smile.

Olivia was next.

“Miss Olivia Lux.” Alyssa presented.

“Good evening, everyone. My name is Olivia, I’m from Buena, New Jersey. The activities I like the most are performing on a stage, playing the piano, and cooking with my mom and my grandmother. The people who inspire me the most are Malala Yousafzai, Kamala Harris, and Beyoncé Knowles.” She giggled.

“Adorable!” Alyssa said into the microphone.

Oh, she was good-good.

It reminded Trixie of the time Pearl went against Valentina, her smile also charmed the judges effortlessly making her sister lost that pageant.

Okay, the first round was done. The talent portion was next and Trixie hadn’t been that nervous before.

There were twenty –well, nineteen- girls competing that night, and some of them were really good. The swimsuit portion was something Trixie just preferred to ignore it happened; she was embarrassingly looking at one particular lady but she did her best pretending she wasn’t –even when her face was probably as red as her swimsuit-. Next were the talents and they went from juggling, opera singing, gymnastics to some awful singing, uncoordinated tap dancing, and some slips and falls -those that fail were often the most entertaining.

After Priyanka’s interpretative dance, it was Trixie’s turn.

She was on her country pink leather bodysuit with her Texan boots and big brushed hair. She held her pink glittery guitar near to her.

Alyssa was about to announce it when she felt a hand over her shoulder.

It was Olivia.

“Hey, I just wanted to wish you good luck. I’m sure you’re going to kill it.”

Trixie squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

She took a deep breath before walking onto the stage.

“…here she is, Trixie Mattel!”

“Good night, everyone, how are you doing?” She displayed her white teeth. If something, Trixie felt comfortable in front of an audience when she had her guitar with her. “I hope you all know this one… because if you don’t… ”

She knew the chords by heart, as soon as she plucked the strings she got into character, moving her body and dancing around. The audience recognized the first couple of notes of Jolene right away. They could say she foreshadowed it on her presentation so no one should’ve been surprised at all.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I’m begging of you please don’t take my man

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

Please don’t take him just because you can

People started clapping along and mouthed the words.

Your beauty is beyond compare

With flaming locks of auburn hair

With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green

She was having a great time and then, the lyrics came out of her mouth and her eyes directed to the girl behind the curtains who was still looking at her performance even when she was next.

Your smile is like a breath of spring

Your voice is soft like summer rain

And I cannot compete with you… Jolene

«Your smile is like a breath of spring» that single sentence could be used to describe Olivia perfectly and Trixie didn’t stop staring at her while pronouncing every word.

The rest of the song went even better, she really engaged with the audience. Trixie was very good at impersonating Dolly but she also liked giving it a little twist here and there, letting her personality shine through the music.

She had done a better job than that other girl that attempted to do These Boots Are Made For Walkin’. People gave her a full standing ovation, that was the best feeling in the world.

She was still shaking with adrenaline post-show when she crossed paths with –probably- her biggest competition of the night.

Olivia, who looked polished and gorgeous on a halter aqua short dress, her hair perfectly tight in an up-do and that blinding smile…

“Trixie you were fantastic! I knew you were going to do a great job but you really gave a show out there.”

“Thank you… break a leg… uh…”

“I’m so nervous.” She peeped over the blonde’s shoulder. A member of the staff was setting Olivia’s keyboard in the meantime Alyssa thanked the pageant sponsors.

“Look, the judges already love you so you just have to do your best out there and… have fun.”

Olivia nodded and hugged Trixie tightly before heading to the main stage.

Trixie was out of breath.

She knew her mother was going to go crazy if she was late back in the dressing room to change to her nightgown but it didn’t matter. She wanted to be there, supporting Olivia just like she did.

“Without further delay, Miss Olivia Lux.” Alyssa announced.

Olivia started playing the notes of For Elise on the keyboard and the audience was already fascinated by it but then, she pressed a couple of buttons that added rhythm to the classical symphony and the song became For Albert by Sarah Jackson-Holman. Olivia’s voice was also lovely and it complimented the song very well. She had an amazing stage presence and that was what made her performance stand up.

She guessed that the line «Your voice is soft like summer rain» also applied to Olivia.

Trixie was bewitched watching her leaving it all on the stage and so were the judges. She was surely scoring high with that interpretation. The audience gave her the second standing ovation of the night, well-earned.

Trixie herself was clapping like her biggest fan.

“That was amazing!” She celebrated the other girl.

“Oh my God… you watched it?”

“Yes, I wouldn’t miss it.”

Olivia was about to cry. “Thank you…”

“Hey, hey… save those tears for the end or you’re going to ruin your makeup.”

“Okay…” She sobbed but her face remained dry and her makeup flawless.

Back in the dressing room, Trixie’s mother wasn’t around which was strange since she was the first to boss Trixie around as soon as she put a step in.

She didn’t pay much attention since something else happened in the contiguous station, number thirteen.

“This cannot be happening…” Olivia was on the verge of a panic attack. “It has to be here somewhere.” She sounded so afflicted it made Trixie feel about whatever was going on before even knowing the details.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Oh, Trixie…” She fell into her arms. “It’s terrible, just terrible…” She was trying her best not to cry, Trixie could tell. “My nightgown has disappeared!”

“What?! No, that can’t be. Where was it last time you saw it?”

“In the hanger with my other dresses… It was here before the talent show I just saw it… My mom went to check on the car just in case but… I swear it was here. You have to believe me.”

Trixie stroked Olivia’s back trying to comfort her, even when she wasn’t the most affectionate person and having this type of contact was difficult to her, with that girl it was innate… she felt in need of protecting her.

“I believe you. We’re going to find it, okay? I promise it. We still thirty minutes before our turn.”

“Thank you… you’re a great friend.”

She smiled at Olivia.

Something shady was going on and Trixie was going to find out what it was.

She went out the hallway; neither of the other girls had seen something so if someone really stole Olivia’s dress it had to be while the girls were performing on the stage. Olivia’s mother did what she could to make time but finally decided to tell Alyssa was for the best, the hostess had cursed in her southern accent but assured the lady that they were also going to look for the emerald green nightgown.

Trixie finally found her mother next to the coffee machine with a cigarette in her hand.

“Mom, Olivia’s dress was stolen from the dressing room, where you around it before the talent show?”

She frowned and shook her head, the cigarette hung on her mouth unlighted. “No clue. Kids should be careful with their things.” She looked at Trixie from head to toe. “Why aren’t you dressing up already?”

“I’ll do it in a second. We’re trying to find her dress or she’s not going to make it to the next round.”

“Why do you care? You should be responsible for yourself and yourself only, Patricia. Otherwise, you’re not going to make it far in life…” She rummaged her purse trying to find a box of matches when it fell from her hands. “Shit…” She cursed.

Trixie kneeled on the floor to pick up the purse when she spotted a bottle of kerosene.

She picked the item and looked at it carefully and then she looked at her mother.

“Isn’t this the thing Violet uses for her baton routine?”

“I don’t know, I use it to clean…”

“Mom… What are you doing with this in your purse?”

“Oh, c’mon, Trixie. Give it to me.” She snatched the bottle from her hands and lighted up her cigarette with the matches. “You didn’t see anything.”

It suddenly made sense.

“You were the one who sabotaged Violet’s act, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh my God… you did.” Trixie was speechless. “Did you steal Olivia’s dress too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, why would I do any of that?”

“Because you don’t think I can win on my own… You’ve been obstructing the competition all day long.”

“Fine, whatever… yes. I don’t think you can win on your own and these little amateurs cannot beat you… you’re a Mattel, do you have an idea what that name represents? The legacy that’s over your shoulders?”

“You got no shame at all, do you? What’s next? Are you going to throw marbles all over the stage?” Trixie felt like she was about to throw up. “Where’s Olivia’s dress?”

Her mother jeered. “Do you really believe I’m going to tell you? Please… Now go back to the dressing room and put some fucking vaseline on your teeth, I didn’t pay for your braces all those years for you to look like a bitter hag.”

“You’re going to regret this.”

Trixie really wanted to yell something at her but a plan was already forming on her mind and if it worked, her mother was going to get what she deserved.

“Any news?” Olivia asked with a spark of hope in her voice.

Trixie’s heart broke in the spot. She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Liv. I couldn’t find it.”

“Oh no… Alyssa said if I don’t go out in fifteen minutes they’ll have to continue without me and I’ll be disqualified from the category meaning I won’t win in points…” She buried her face in her hands.

“Not necessarily.” Trixie squeezed her shoulder. “Fortunately for you… and because I come from a great tradition of pageant winners, I’ve learned to always go to a competition with a back-up.” She pulled a bag that was previously hanging next to her.

Olivia’s face lit up. “What is it…? Are you serious?”

Trixie nodded. “You can wear this one… now, obviously we’re not the same size but I think it can fit you just well with a couple of quick adjustments.”

“Oh my goodness… Trixie…” She was trying to find the right words. “You’re the best.” She embraced the girl into a hug.

Trixie beamed. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright. Text your mom you have a dress and get ready… I need to get a bottle of hairspray I left in the hallway, okay? I’ll see you behind the stage.”

“Okay…” She nodded. “Right. I’ll do that. Thank you, thank you… I cannot express it enough.”

“Hey, that’s what friends are for.”

Olivia held her hands. “You’re a wonderful person, Trixie Mattel.”

She felt a sting of guilt on her stomach. “I am…”

Trixie’s mother was about to enter into cardiac arrest when she found her daughter who was next in line, not ready.

“Trixie, where the hell were you? It’s almost your turn… where’s your dress?”

“I’m not going to walk on that stage, mom. I don’t want to win, not like this at least. It’s not fair.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Don’t start with me, Patricia. Do you have an idea of everything I had to do for you to be here tonight?”

“I do… that’s why I’m out of this competition. I already informed Alyssa I’m out.”

“You did what? Spoiled brat… Where is she? I’m going to find her and tell her you’re completely out of your mind… you’re being irrational and complicated and… you’ll see when we get home.”

Trixie’s mother tried in vain to convince Alyssa but she kept repeating “Barbara, please…”

The girls were starting to get in line and Trixie saw that Olivia was looking around trying to find her, when she did, she was highly surprised.

Olivia looked stunning in that shimmering pink-peach dress, the sequins fell over and sparked whenever she moved, she had added some orange accents to her makeup and an orange lily flower on her hair –Trixie was sure she had seen that flower on a vase at the reception but she wasn’t going to discredit her resourcefulness.

“You look so beautiful…” Trixie admired.

“Thank you… But… where’s your dress? Why aren’t you ready?”

“I dropped out.” She confessed. “This competition wasn’t for me so go ahead and kill it as you did before.”

“Wait- Is this?” Alyssa announced the category. “This is the dress you were supposed to wear, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay… It looks amazing on you anyway.”

“Trixie, no… I can’t do it. I can’t accept it…” The girls started walking.

“Listen, Olivia. I have a very good reason to resign but you don’t. This is a gorgeous gown and one of us should wear it tonight… and I’m glad is you.”

Olivia pouted. “Trixie…”

“No tears… no tears… make me proud, okay?”

Olivia held Trixie’s hand until it was her turn and even then, she didn’t let go until her fingers slid from her hand.

To no one’s shock, Olivia nailed the interview round and she truly wore that gown as if it had been made specifically for her. Trixie’s mother kept grumbling on the back and tried to light up another cigarette in the close environment, finally, a guard escorted her out of the venue while she kept repeating do you know who I am? I’m Miss USA!

But Trixie only had eyes for Olivia and that flashing smile of hers…

When she walked out of the stage, she almost overthrew the blonde.

“Trixie! I think there’s a chance I might win this…”

“You’re going to win this.” She assured.

Trixie knew one or two things about pageants and the way the judges reacted to her was more than just good.

After Alyssa announced the top five and Olivia’s name was among them, she knew she was going to win.

“Ladies, gentlemen, folks… it’s time to announce the results of our pageant of Miss Teen Venus 2021… Could the finalists please step forward?”

Trixie had her fingers crossed.

“For the title of second runner-up we have… Miss Priyanka!”

Everyone cheered when the girl in the red gown waved at them, Priyanka was probably just happy that Alyssa caught her name… finally.

“Our first runner-up is… Miss Crystal!”

The red-haired girl that had won the audience over with her personality waved enthusiastically.

“And now… for the title of Miss Teen Venus… let’s welcome my daughter Tiara, the past winner of this pageant who’s ending her reign tonight.”

Trixie sometimes wondered if no one founded it weird that Alyssa’s daughter was named after an object that was so common across the pageant world when she was also… a pageant queen… maybe it was just her.

The soon-to-be-former Miss Teen Venus looked exquisite in a white gown with her big tiara and flower bouquet.

“And now… the moment we all been waiting for… the judges have made their decision… Our new Miss Teen Venus is…”

Drum roll…

“Miss Olivia Lux!”

Trixie cheered as loud as she could, the pageant theme song started playing –really? No one? It was basically a Dancing Queen rip-off…- and there were glitter and confetti canons… Olivia got her sash, her crown, and her flowers. She was now shedding tears of pure joy and the cameras were flashing almost as much as her smile.

She looked jubilant and Trixie was just happy to witness it.

She had to take pictures with her family, with the judges, with the former winner, with Alyssa… it took a good fifteen minutes before she could leave the stage with the hostess wrapping up the event and saying goodnight to everyone.

Trixie was still shaking behind the curtains when Olivia walked down the stage, she opened her hands to hug the winner but instead, Olivia cupped her face and planted a kiss on her lips. Trixie suddenly felt dizzy and that ninety percent of her body was turned into jelly.

“Sorry… I’ve been wanting to do that for a while… maybe it was rushed and without permission I-”

But before she knew it, Trixie was kissing her back.

“Congratulations… Miss Teen Venus.” She said, breathless.

Olivia grinned and looked at her with pure devotion in her eyes.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You deserve it.”

“This means I can go to the nationals now!” She wiggled with excitement.

“That’s right.”

“And do you know what it means?” She wrapped her arms around Trixie and pulled her closer again.

“That we’re going to meet again?”

She nodded, her crown almost fell out.

“And that next time… we’re going to compete for real.”

“I’d like that.”

“But until then… may I kiss you again?”

She didn’t need to hear the words to get the response to that question.

read on ao3 ✨

[parnelbedlam]

12th century England and the Wayhaven Chronicles

Let me preface this with I am not trying to bash Sera’s work in anyway. I am a fan of the Wayhaven chronicles and don’t want this post to be seen in the wrong light. I love seeing fanart and writings of the text and in no way mean to hurt anyone with this post, rather I’d like to help inform on this particular area.

I understand that this work is fiction, that it isn’t reality but does seem to reflect our world just with a hidden supernatural spin. As such it stands to reason that the 12th century in Wayhaven is the same as in the real world (or at least closely resembling). But because it is fiction it doesn’t have to conform to reality and thus this may all be moot.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about 12th century England please read on if not just ignore this post.

(any pictures used that are not credited are taken from the Historia Normannis re-enactment group)

So straight off the bat, regarding Adam/Ava and the 12th century there are some things about them that simply don’t fit the period.

Now to understand why I care about a few small details; I have been a 12th century re-enactor in England for the past 6 years (and a multi- period re-enactor for around 8) . As such while there is definitely much more I can learn I do have a fairly good grasp of the early Norman period (in England as least). My group aims to portray Norman life in England from peasants to Nobles and I’m heavily involved in the drapery.

1. Adam/Ava’s name is slightly off

So ‘du’ means ‘of’ in French but here’s where every English school lies to their students; The Normans aren’t French. Rather they’re Vikings who were given land by the French. Anyway with that bit of history out of the way the connective used for names by the Normans in England at this time isn’t Du but De so De Lacey, De La Ware ect.

Fun fact; Adam/Ava would have had several ways you could refer to them as last names weren’t what they are now as such they would have been refered to as Adam De Mortain, Adam Fitz[insert father’s name here] (Fitz mean son of) or Ava of (wherever they lived in England).

From what I understand Adam isn’t the most popular name in the 12th century, he’s much more likely to be named William, Stephen, Henry, Steven, Robert or Richard (note how many kings and royalty of the time have those names). Adam become more popular as a name around the 13th cen but this is something I would have to look more into to properly comment on so take it with a pinch of salt.

Ava is fine I think? Ada works as an alternative that’s the name I use on encampment. Some popular ones of the period are Matilda, Eleanor, Margaret, Isolda is another (Emperess Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine are some incredible women who do not get enough credit in history)

The doomsday book is an excellent source for understanding names in England at the time (it’s basically a survay of England and a portion of Wales ordered by William the Conqueror a couple of decades after he became king).

2. Gender Roles in Norman society

Norman society had gender roles, it just did. Less so for peasants (some crafts were seen as more a man’s domain or a woman’s but that’s about it, didn’t see many men embroidering and women doing blacksmithing) but very clear ones for nobles.

Noble women basically ran the estate, they had the keys for the coffers, the doors and handled the money. Their power and status was signified by a large ring of keys they would wear on their belt with the only other person having this being a steward. After all if you have lots of keys and those keys are made of say brass which is more expensive then cast iron you must have a pretty big estate and wealth.

Men in contrast showed this with a sword at their belt. Contrary to media swords were not something anyone had access to in the middle ages, they were expensive (think luxury sports car) and only really good for killing people. You can’t really use it to cut your bread or skin a rabbit, if you did have some extra money for wargear you would buy a helmet or some armour before you bought a sword. Even most mercenaries didn’t use swords, it was symbol of wealth.

Noble men were taught from an early age how to fight and were squired to knights to learn the ways of warfare (they didn’t just learn how to fight but it was a large part of their education).

Women didn’t fight on the battlefield at all, knight Ava would not have been a thing. Women did occassionally command armies such as if their castle was being besieged but they didn’t fight as knights. I know this was done so that there weren’t any differences between the characters of Adam or Ava but in reality it wouldn’t be a thing.

Some of the things both were taught though was horse riding and hunting, as well as poetry and music. There were pleanty of noble men who were troubadour and women who were trobairitz (travelling musicians/composers, not quite like how bards are portrayed as today).

3. Battlefield Etiquette and armour

Knights don’t kill other knights they took them hostage. This was because a dead knight was worth what he was wearing but an alive knight could be ransomed back to his family for much more. As such it was seen poorly if you did murder a knight when you could have taken them ransom (most knights would surrender if they felt they were in danger, people aren’t stupid).

Plate did not exist in the 12th century, what was worn was maille (or chain maille except maille means chain so it was just called maille). This is more so what Adam would be wearing;

What he’s wearing is a badded gambison under the armour to protect against blunt blows (like from a mace) while on top of that he has maille to protect against slashes (he’s also got his cloth undergarments underneath is all). The cloth on top is a surcoat and would be of your heraldry or your lords heraldry and basically signified to everyone else that you were a knight (so difficult to kill and very good at killing).

Underneath the helmet the maille overs his head and neck (called a coif) and then under that he has a padded arming cap. As such it’s a little difficult to wip your helmet off movie style and you’re face would be covered in oil and sweat, hair sticking to your head. Maille is really good at pulling hair out so you would always have something underneath it (ealier periods, like the vikings, who didn’t wear gambisons wore their tunic underneath).

4. Fashion

This is more just to give an idea of what fashion in the 12th century was like. Media tends to portray the medieval period incorrectly, as dirty and dull and with random bits of fur and leather strapped to people (really Vikings tv show? fur on the outside of your cloak to get wet?)

Much to the opposite, people in the medieval period were clean (they washed) they didn’t just leave dirt on themselves and given peasants didn’t have too much money they kept very good care of their clothing as they couldn’t just get another one everytime they ripped their dress or tunic (or buy the fabric to make another).

Bright coloured clothing was also very popular, it’s harder to dye clothing a bright or deep colour and some colours (purple and black) could only be achieved through using rare dyes. So if you had a bright dress it showed you had more money. Norman’s weren’t so big on jewellry so they showed wealth through their clothing; the colour, the embroidery, the quality of fabric and if it had excess fabric.

-----------

So lets start with Ava.

I’m going to assume that Adam/Ava’s family were upper nobility so had a fair bit of wealth behind them.

Firstly woman’s heads were covered, it was seen as immodist for a woman of age to show her ears (only harlots do that). Mostly what was worn was a wimple which is basically a linen head scalf like so;

But Ava is a noble so she has some other options open to her such as a veil (similar to wimple but flows down the back of the person) or the risque barbette which was very fashionable among the upper nobility.

(maniacal medievalist - wordpress)

Dresses covered the body and just barely touch the floor, low neck lines aren’t in yet so the only skin a woman would be showing is her hands and face (and neck if veil or barbette). You wouldn’t really be able to see her collar bones as that is about where the neckline of the shift and dress are.

Dresses were tight fitting and were worn with a shift underneath (made of linen and basically under garments), Normans (with more money) would dye the shift either white or a contrasting colour. The neck hem and wrists of the dress were often embroidered (if you were very rich you could embroider it with prescious stones and metal thread)

Noble women would often have long impractical sleeves that were embroidered and had a contrasting colour inside to show off their wealth (less wealth smaller bell sleeves). (If say hunting, tight fitted sleeves were recommended, bell sleeves are really impractical for doing anything)

Next we have Adam.

Men’s fashion in the 12th century was similar to women, they wore long tunics (longer the richer you were) with a linen shift underneath, they also wore linen braise (basically underwear) with tight fitting woolen hose (basically stocking). It was the fashion to show off your calves.

Men’s clothing was also embroidered and they wore hats or linen coifs on their heads (it’s only really recently in history where it has become the norm not to wear a hat). The neckline would also be about around the collar bones.

Also quick side notes; cloaks don’t have hoods, hoods are a separate piece of clothing that cover the shoulders

Rings aren’t popular yet, you’ll see much more metal studs on belts or precious stones on clock pins then you’ll see rings. Cross necklaces for men are common, rosaries on the belt for women (richer women would have precious stones on the rosary).

-------------

If you’ve gotten this far thank you for reading this, I do appriciate it. This post was made because while I love Adam/Ava and seeing fanart of Ava as a knight, but as a 12th century re-enactor the inaccuracies grated on me (something that plagues many re-enactors who care about authenticity in media, aka the Vikings and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are horrible representation of what the vikings looked like please stop media).

I hope this post has been informative of the 12th century, it’s one of the lesser known periods of the medieval age and there’s a lot of misinformation about it. As stated at the top this post is purely to help inform about the period and is in now way meant as an attack on the work, Sera or others.

I hope you have a good day.

[popculturebuffet]

*Goofy and Launchpad are hanging a banner*

Banner: CONGRADULATIONS SENIOR WOODCHUCK VIOLET!

Huey: Excellent work guys.. and it only took three hours, four broken lamps.. several jabs in the eyes.. some bloodloss but you did it.

Dewey and Louie: (Walk in)

Louie: So what's all this?

Huey: A party for violet.. I thought she deserved a celebration.. I mean her parents took her out after but you can't get enough and I got one even though I turned it down because I did a terrible thing to try and get it.

Della: And i'm proud of you sweetie... (Has been there thewhole time with boyd, both in uniform)

Huey: I also thought I should bring some of our fellow woodchucks.. but most were small children and our house is a deathtrap on a normal day so for obvious reasons I invited the nigh indescrutable robot who my best friend can repair and my mom who lives here. I mean mom still counts. She's also going to try and start corunning meetings since .. how do I put this nicely.

Della: Launchpad your a terrible Chuckleader

Launchpad: Entirely accurate. And you look hot in that uniform

Della: Also entirely accurate. And while throwing a party for the person who defeated you in compettition isn't MY style, I prefer to sulk and swear vengance, I am PROUD of you for being the bigger duck. Metaphorically she's not a duck and her hair gives her a slight advantage.

Boyd: I"m just happy to be invited. As was my brother.

Louie: HUEY NO HUEY WHY HUEY WHY

Huey: "A woodchuck always invites another woodchuck"..though thankfully the guidebook also says "A woodchuck always obeys restraining orders" so the most he can do is creepily lurk outside.

Doofus:(Breathing heavily and creepily into the closest window from outside)

Louie: Eugh... but we're not going outside for this? Please say no.

Huey: We were but for obvious reasons I cancled the outside portion. I also laid out the solicitor traps with picutres of goldie so HOPEFULLy he'll evnetually end up in one of those. Your my brother, I take your eneimies as seriously as I do my oath as a junior woodchuck. Plus he scares me too.

BOYD: Oh he's not so bad. He stopped holding a knife to my throat while I was powered down after mama and poppa told him to only three times!

Webby: (Riding in on a cartload of snacks and books ) I got the suplies for your party! Almonds like she likes, some salmon and some light reading. You are such a good friend.

Louie: Sure that's ALLL he wants to be.

Huey: (panicked) yeah of COURSE I do... why would you say that?

Dewey: Ohhh Huey's got a girlfriend, huey's got a girlfriend, come on eveyrbody!

Dewey and Della: Huey's got a girlfriend, huey's got a girlfriend!

Boyd: HUEY"S GOT A PARTNER TO SHARE HIS HOPES AND DREAMS WITH MOCKING TONE

Dewey: Your learning buddy

Boyd: We have never met before.

Dewey: We haven't have we? ... why haven't we? I always wanted a robot buddy to laugh at my jokes and do wacky hyjinks with.

Boyd: And I always wanted a third friend!

Della: Sorry son force of habit.

Huey: I do not like violet.. just because she's pretty.. and smarter than me.. and she smells nice.. which I only know because she flew me out of danger after I didn't do the same in a moment of weakness... and she's also awwkawrd with people... and fine I do.

Webby: EHHHH MY BROTHER LIKES MY BEST FRIEND... I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. WE NEED A PLAN.

Huey: I have one it's called be nice and hope she notices.

Della: Oh baby child no. You have to actually make a move. Don't be like your uncle donald

Donald: (Burts in from the back) Stop telling the boys that! I mean it's probably true but it hurts.

Della: I was telling dewey to actually MAKE a move and not just wait for her to notice.

Donald: Oh... then your mother is absolutley right.

Huey: You taught me that!

Donald: And I was very wrong and i'm very much alone and i'll probably die alone aside from you guys. I'm okay with that.

Della: Okay i'm going to put a pin in that because your going to die alone over my dead body.

Donald: We talked scrooge out of us sharing a casket though.

Della: Again pin my baby needs me, Huey just be honest, be yourself... and just don't corner her.. just ask her nicely to go to a movie, or a library or an abandoned condo built on an native american buiral ground.

Webby: Thanks again for the date spot suggestion by the way. Lena loved it.

Della: your welcome. I have enoguh mom for all of you.. includingt he tiny robot and the grown man who misses his child.

Goofy: Awwww...

Louie: Wait why IS goofy here?

Donald: He's rooming with me. I still had the spare room and he has empty nest.. plus he needs a new house after the old one burned down.

Goofy: It's just like college!

Huey: But I"m.. scared okay? besides her being objectivley better than me, I had BOYD run the satstics.

BOYD: But your still great.

Huey: Thank you, what if she dosen't want that or dosen't feel that way?

Louie: Then you'll be awkard around each other for a while.. you were going to be ANYWAY if you don't tell her and either way the awkward goes away. You got this man. She's a nerd, your a nerd, your all nerds.

Launchpad: (Happily) hey!

Louie: You got this. We're all in your corner.

Doofus: (from outside still) Even me... though if you fail i'm going for that.

Webby: (cheerfully) If you even THINK about hitting on my best friend again I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and bury you where no will ever find you.

Doofus: Ohhhh I won't.. your much more intresting.

Webby: Ewwwww.. I have a girlfriend. Also your objectivley disgusting in every way shape or form.

Doofus: Well I (gun cocks) Am being threatned by your help. Good day to you. (Runs off)

Louie: MRs. b, did you ever know that your my hero?

Beakly: (beams proudly and then goes back to her gardening)

Dewey: Louie's right, while I will mock you constnatly you got this. Plus you got her best friend in her corner.

Webby: Yeah.. though if you ever hurt her i'll do to you what i'll probably have to do to doofus one day

Huey: That is entirely fair and I will accept my death without a struggle.

Webby: See you are good boyfriend material!

Huey: Though I doubt I mean she couldn't possibly...

MEANWHILE: not far from the house, Lena and Violet are walking

Violet: Feel the same way. I mean... for one your around.

Lena: I appricate the compliment but i'm dating his sister. And i'm also VERY gay. Like our dad's gay. Like huey's mom is turbo bi.

Violet: Yes i've read the "Bi as explitive" t-shirt she wore when we first met her. But besides a lack of better options why me? I'm stilted, I do not get people, and until a few months ago my only friend was learning.

Lena: Take out stilted and you just described him too. Your similar enough to really click but just diffrent enough it won't get boring.

Violet: But you nad webby

Lena: Are opposites. Yes this is true. But it's not ALL relationships. Sometimes you date someone just like you, sometimes you don't.. I mean our dad's aren't exactly the same either, but their amazing. And so are you. I may not belivie in most people, But I belivie in you. (they arrive at the gates, violet has been in uniform naturally) Now get in there and get that nerd, Nerd.

Violet: (has been tearing up slightly and hugs her sister) You are the best sibling I never asked for.

Lena: (Hugs her back) right back atcha

(Inside)

Dewey: (holding a cake shaped like violet's head and eating it directly with his mouth) I got the cake

Huey: This isa why I set up a decoy.. three of htem.

(Della and launchpad are also holding hteir own cakes)

Della: But i'd never...

Huey: You would if this wasn't so important to me, so I feel your behavior deserves to be rewarded. Now if you'll excuse me I need to hide my emotions. (Waves hand over face.. and still looks like a nervous mess) There no one will notice

Louie: Huey she's a nerd not blind. Look man, your amazing, you are a catch.. I mean not at our age or even in highschool but eventually scrooge will die and you'll be richer because you'll probably invent something that makes you rich before that. As I said just go for it man, just find an opportunity and cease it.. we're all backing you up. And if it fails, we'll be there to pick you up. Now go get that nerd.

Huey: Right.. i'm just going to pen the door and

Duckworth: Masters violet and lena... (Leads them into the foyer) Also nicely done.. and thank you for asking my permission though in the future as long as your uncle is uninvolved you need only give me a heads up so he can hide from it.

Huey: Thank you duckworth.. ahme... ta-da!

Violet: (blushes) It's wonderful... and is that a bookshelf? And.. is that terry pratchetts complete works? And a cake shaped like my head.. may I?

Huey: (Hands her a knife)

Violet: (Cuts in) And it's an exact repleica of my interior cranimum. I knew you wanted those x-rays for a reason b esides curosity you rascal

Huey: (Blushes) I uh.. thanks

Violet: (Blushes bakc) Uh any time)

Della: Awwww

Huey: Hey violet I was uh wondering,, I uh..

Violet: ... okay so he does feel the same wya tha'ts a relief. You were right Lena

Huey: Wait what?

Louie: You had to give her the pep talk too huh?

Lena: Yup.. I mean she is usuually confident

Louie: Not so true here...

Dewey: I"m fine with that.. it's what makes him loveable.. that and it means i'm not 100% teh donald

Della: Nah you got too much of my genetics for that.

Huey: Okay I can handle this okay..

Violet: Oh god you really aren't intrested

Huey: No I am I am but why me? I"m not even a senior woodchuck.

Violet: no but when given the easy out you didn't take it, you took the honorable path. YOu also are smart, adorable, and do not mind the fact I speak more roboticaly than our actual robot friend.

BOYD: 4 friends!

Huey: An dyou.. dont' seem bothered that I kinda sorta a little am nervous.

Violet: If you mean extremley yes but I find it cute.

Huey: I.. uh (Blushes0 uhhhhh... youralsobrillantandcuteandIlikeyourhairandthewayyousmellandIknowthat'sweirdbutIwasupwindofyousoicouldn'thelpitandiwnattobeyourboyfriendeventually

Louie:Wow just.. wow.. I mean I expected it to be bad but that is art

Violet: I accept (Smooches his cheek) Now let's dig into my head shall we? I call frontal lobe

Lena: I want a large portion of skull

Webby: I get the eyes.

(The two nerds hold hands and head for the cake)

FIN

[universalshirts]

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It's a tougher question than you might believe, and there's a ton of approach that enters play when considering what price point to market your product at. So, we've gathered some methods of the profession to offer you an establishing factor on how to value your custom-made t-shirts for retail.

Wanting to sell Universal shirts Tampa online? Know your expenses

The extremely first thing you must take into consideration when valuing your tee shirts for retail is how much it sets you back to produce them. Obviously, you wish to keep expenses somewhat reduced, however not at the expenditure of quality. Something we have actually located to be widely real is that people are willing to pay more for a retail high quality tee, rather than a t-shirt that's uncomfortable and has a rough feeling. So paying $1 or $2 even more on the front end may enable you to charge $5-- 10 more at retail, plus you'll produce consumers who like your item, tell their good friends regarding it and also return for more! That's how you develop a successful brand name.

That being claimed, don't hesitate to price your t-shirts wherefore they deserve. If you're selling a top notch t-shirt, see to it your cost communicates that. If you're valuing your t-shirts for less than they deserve, your customers are going to view them as less than they're worth. So rate them as they need to be priced, and also let your product speak for itself.

Study the marketplace

Taking a look at the current market is also a superb method of identifying what your retail expense should be. Taking a look at a competing tee line to see how they value their tee shirts is an excellent embarking on point.

This isn't to state you ought to just value your tee shirts at the very same cost, or just $1 less than your rivals, however it is necessary to think of what other people are billing for their item when you're attempting to share to your consumers that they ought to pick you.

A tee shirt prices calculator

Once you have your t-shirt expense down, you can use it to calculate a rate determined by your desired portion of earnings. A write-up from Entrepreneur states that the majority of retailers strive an earnings margin of concerning 50%.

Using the 50% margin, all you would certainly have to do is multiply your price to generate by 2, and also you 'd have your retail price. But if going for any other earnings margin percentage, you'll utilize this formula:

Cost Formula:

Market price = [( cost to create) ÷ (100-profit %)] x 100

So allow's claim you intend to set your profit margin at 60%, and your t shirt sets you back $10.00 to generate. Because instance, your formula will certainly appear like this:

List price = [( 10.00) ÷ (100-- 60)] x 100

List price = [10.00 ÷ 40] x 100

Retail Price = 0.25 x 100

List price = $25.

Straightforward enough, right? Now that we've got the mathematical part of pricing down, allow's enter into some psychology.

Cloak & Dapper t-shirt home window screen.

Price for individuals, not for numbers.

This next reality might be among the most crucial and the very least considered aspects when individuals are pricing their product. That fact is: People do not constantly act logically.

If people acted reasonably all of the time, valuing a product would be exceptionally routine. You can connect your prices into an equation, obtain a rate that most individuals would certainly set, as well as start marketing. However people are emotional, and whether you assume it or not, the price of your product is mosting likely to activate an emotional reaction in your clients.

Great prices will consist of thinking about human behavior and also human feeling to locate a wonderful area that will certainly persuade people to select your Universal shirts. With that in mind, right here are 3 quick rates strategies that will certainly assist you optimize your rate for emotion over reasoning:.

1) End your cost with a non-round number, as opposed to a zero or a 5. Factor being: when humans are checking details to decide, they obtain careless. So, although the distinction in between $30 as well as $29 is just $1, it seems like a great deal more. As well as we'll make decisions based upon that feeling.

2) Package products together, and also provide a cost break. Rather than stay with offering every one of your items individually, think about producing a bundle package also. Claim you're marketing 3 various tee shirts for $20 each. Take into consideration using a choice to get the tee shirts together for $55 total amount.

Ugmonk even pricing example.

Ugmonk provides a terrific example of bundle rates in the picture above. They market a set of 4 tee shirts for $100 (or $25 each), rather than their regular pricing of $28 each. Focusing the bundle around one style or concept like they do offers this bundle some incentive aims as well!

Numerous words have actually been written on how product packing rises profits, so we'll spare you the reading as well as offer you the brief version: when applied right, it functions. You'll sell extra tees with less initiative, as well as your clients conserve cash. Win, win.

Key to bundling though: make certain you offer an option to get each item individually also. Some clients may simply desire the one item, which's penalty. And also, providing separately lets the customer see the bargain they get by acquiring a packed bundle.

3) Use Anchor Pricing. This means showing the initial price, after that showing what you're actually billing for it. One brand that does a wonderful task of this Huckberry, an online menswear industry. With partnerships with brands, they have the ability to offer unique offers for their customers.

In the image listed below, you can see that conventional retail for the S/S Breton Tee Shirt is $55.00. Nonetheless, at Huckberry, you can get it for $44.98. This lets you recognize that you're getting a bargain that you won't get somewhere else. (Notice that their cost is likewise a non-round number!).

Huckberry anchor rate example.

An additional fantastic usage for anchor prices is when partnered with the bundle strategy. Making use of the instance earlier, buying 3 Universalshirts individually would set you back $60, but you developed a package for $55. So, your item web page could review similar to this: $55 $60.

In this manner, the customer sees the value of the offer and recognizes what they're conserving.

There is a lot more that might go into this lesson, yet this is a terrific establishing factor! Start by 

1) Understanding your expense 

2) Investigating the marketplace 

3) Establishing your earnings margin 

4) Rates for individuals and 

5) Getting paid!

Whether you have a dream of a beginning a tee line, have taken some actions in the direction of it, or currently have a running firm, we hope you discovered this article practical.

If you haven't yet, download Real String's Guide to Ecommerce for pointers on how to start a business.

Likewise, if you're presently offering online or looking to begin, our gratification program can help. Leave the selecting and also packaging to us while you concentrate on designing and also offering your top quality custom-made merch.

Happy selling!

[maggyme13]

Sugar (8/?)

AN: Next one up XD Let me know what you think^^

Masterlist

Sugar- Masterlist

Sugar 7

Four hours later you entered the main room of the flat, one big bag of cosmetics and similar things in hand, while Bucky carried the other three bags of goods. Those mostly contained casual and basic clothing, you unsurprisingly could not buy in the boutiques Bucky drove you first.

It was so ´bad´, he had to drive you to your ´usual´ stores to shop.

“Can you place them next to my room please? I will put them away and then make some-”, the ringtone of your phone interrupted you, it was Mr Laufeyson.

“Hello.”, you greeted him once you had accepted the call.

“(y/n). Are you still out with Barnes?”

“No, I just came back a minute ago. Why?”, you hummed, offering the man a bottle of water, who declined.

“Good. Quill invited us for dinner. Apparently he want to apologize to you in person. He swore he will behave himself.”

“Oh- okay. When and where?”, you asked , though did not sound very thrilled.

“I understand if you-”

“No, it is okay. As long as he jeeps his hands to himself.”, you sighted, your head tilted back.

“He will. Are you really okay with it? I can attend on my own, telling him you felt ill.”, the CEO answered and you could hear his frown through the phone.

“It really is alright; and my mother raised me to always give second chances and allow someone to at least try and apologize. My Ma would have my hide if I were not to allow that.”

Though that does not mean I have to accept that apology.

“5pm. And we have to meet  there. I will send Barnes the locations. Wear something  chick. It is an italian Restaurant.”, he explained further.

“Alright. See you there?”

“See you there. And if you change your mind, let me know.”

“Will do. See you this evening Mr Laufeyson, bye.”

“What is wrong?”, came Bucky´s worried voice from behind you.

“Ego invited us to an ´apology dinner´ at 5. Mr Laufeyson will send you the address. And now I have to get ready. Yayyyy! Motivation!”, you fake cheered.

“Boss makes you attend?”, the Bouncer asked in disbelieve.

“No. My upbringing does. Ma always said to allow someone to try and apologize, though to have a good way to politely decline. My Ma would kill me if I would not attend. So, if you excuse me, I have to get ready. And that means to find an appropriate dress, I actually would wear. And then there is make-up and hair and – just be glad you are a dude.”, you groaned.

“Well, have fun. I will be downstairs in our flat. Just call me when you need anything.”

“Will do, thank you for everything today.”, you smiled and entered your room.

There is that one black dress I could have worn at the club. It shouldn´t be too warm for a restaurant….. Yes sounds good, and now the make-up. Sigh lets see- two hours to go.

You took a quick shower (with the glass turned opaque), before drying you hair and body with one of those huge soft towels, only to put on some simple make-up and do your hair.

One and a half hours later, you were rather satisfied with what you were able to pull off and chose the most comfortable pair of lingerie (that would fit the dress) and then the dress.

Waiting with the shoes until the very last second, you walked around the apartment to get used to the way the fabric would move around you body.

It was comfortable and was long enough for you not to feel exposed in any way.

Knock Knock Knock

“Ready to go?”, it was Bucky.

“Yes. “,and with that the two of you were off.

____

My number is saved on your phone on speed-dial. Nr 6 if I was informed correctly. Just dial it and come and get you or send someone. Thor made me your personal bodyguard, together with Sam. Depending on whom is working at the club. I will wait until Pietro arrives with Loki and then get to the Bifrost. “, your friend spoke from the drivers seat.

“Personal Bodyguard?”, you repeated his words.

“Yes. You thought you would not get protection? Think again.”, he shook his head, “Tomorrow we are going to save your ´safe word´ in the security system. So think about one till then.”

“Okay. Any idea what?”, you hummed, looking at the passing streets on the other side of the car window.

“Any word you can remember well, but you do not usually use.”, he answered in a matter of fact kind of way.

Professional, even.

“Oookay. Do you know anything about the restaurant you are escorting me to?”

“It´s high class, but not too stuck up. Portions are decent sized , so you will at least not leave hungry.”

At least something

“Am I to wait in the car until Mr Laufeyson arrives?”, you wondered, not used to any situation like this.

“Uhm-no. He is already here, see?” Bucky answered, pointing to the window of the restaurant , only for you to notice the man in question with Ego.

It was that moment that your phone buzzed, indicating you got a message.

“Just tell the Hostess your Name. She knows you are with me and will escort you to our table.”

“We just arrived. Will do.”

“Well, let´s go.”, you mumbled to yourself and waved Bucky a good-bye, leaving the black SUV.

A young woman greeted you with a typical customer-service-smile.

“I am with Mr Laufeyson. My name is (y/n) (y/ln)”, you greeted her with a smile in your voice.

“Of course, please follow me.”, she answered with a monotone voice and motioned towards the dining area.

“Please lead the way.”, you nodded and followed her to your table.

Am I too late?

There were three people seated, with two being Ego and Mr Laufeyson, while the last one was a young woman, with fake blond hair, a skirt that barely covered her ass and a top that did the same for her breasts.

She sat on a cushioned stool, and not like the men on real chairs.

There was a stool for you next to Loki as well.

Seems like I have to sit on one of those as well.

“Ah, the final guest has arrived. And right on time. We only ordered drinks for now. Please take a seat.”, Ego smiled like nothing had happened and you had to forcefully suppress a gagging reflex.

“Thank you. And thank you for your invitation.”, you smiled instead and took the designated seat.

It was obvious, that those seats meant to show your position was not equal to the men.

“Good choice with the dress. I took the liberty to order a bottle of white whine for the two of us. But feel free to order whatever you like. And if you want to leave at any time, let me know and we will.”, Mr Laufeyson leaned towards you and spoke only for you to hear.

“Thank you. Will do.”, you whispered back just as quiet as he did.

Not three seconds later a menu was placed in front of you.

You thanked with a smile and started to look over it. Reading the offered dishes, you decided on some Pasta with creme-sauce and vegetables.

“Excellent choice.”, your companion hummed, seeing the dish you pointed at, like you were asking for his approval.

“We will take the Pasta and the Chicken-Breast, with a side-dish of bread-sticks as appetizer.”, the CEO ordered for the two of you.

“My Pleasure, Mr Laufeyson. What can we prepare for you Mr Quill?”, the servant inquired.

“ A salad for Puppy and the Black Angus Steak with Truffles for me.”

“With pleasure.”, and with that he disappeared just as unnoticed as he had turned up.

“So, Loki, I hope you got home after our last meeting without any problems. I was sad about your sudden departure; it was a quite interesting and fun evening.”, Ego smiled and you nearly choked on the sip of water you just were about to drink.

Excuse me?!

“Yes, but you know exactly why we left. And I believe that was your reason for this invitation.”, Mr Laufeyson smiled back with a pointed voice.

“Yes, yes. Of course-”

Do I get my apology now or not? WTF

“- Why don´t we talk about our business ideas while we wait for the food?. Puppy, why don´t you fresh up a bit?”, the other man literally ordered and the other woman stood up with a smile and walked away in a slutty way.

It was like an accident, you had to follow her with your eyes even though you did not want to.

Ego harrumphed and send a questioning look at you.

“(y/n) can stay if she wants to.”, his voice was stern and dark, “and I still believe you still own us something. Otherwise we are leaving.”

He sighted.

“Yeah, yeah. My apologies for my behavior. Satisfied Laufeyson? “

“Mmmmh. What do you want to talk about?”

That´s it? WTF? I can´t believe it!

Anger made your blood boil, but you tried to keep calm or to at least  not show your state of mind.

The next couple of minutes continued with business-talk you were not really interested in.

That was until Puppy returned; her hips and tit´s swinging from one side to the other. She let her fake ´claws´ brush over her ´companions´  shoulders, earning a loud smack on her ass for it.

She giggled.

You nearly puked. Again.

Soon after, the food arrived; it smelled and looked amazingly and you had to really use restraint to not dig in at once.

You had been raised to wait until everyone was served after all.

Loki received his food last, and once he had, you wished ´bon apetit.

The food was even more delicious than you thought.

Part 9

AN2.0 How will this turn our for the reader? And will her family make an appreance again in later chapters?

REBLOGS and comments are appreciated:)

Thank you very much.

~MaggY

Taglists:

Permanent:

@jadepc​@pacifyhxlsey​ @thankyoukarenclifford​

@thankyouforanonymity​  @punkrockhufflefluff​

@scarletraine @buckycaptspideypool  @markusstraya @graveyard-groupie @markusstrayya @randomgirlkensy @the-soulofdevil

@marshyrebelcloud

MCU:

@yknott81​    @banner-and-bucky-are-life​ @forext20​ @dyanlzbb​  @so-finster-die-nacht @emmii4​ @bitchwhytho​ @ladyofmyst​   @jilldsumner​ @momc95​ @appreciating-fanfics​

Sugar:

@bits-and-bobs-and-kawaii-stuffs @mimmie666​   @fullranchwolfoperator

@cluelessnitwhit​ @youknowitsclouds @his-paradox @purplerainharry​

@spootgaai2000 @iamsuperjenna​ @nikkipea​   @alexakeyloveloki @timelordy-fangirl2 @girrafeeeeeee @emilyjane44x

I couldnt tag a few of you… sorry.

Want to get tagged as well? Comment, Reblog or send an ask to let me know.

[outerloop]

Porting Falcon Age to the Oculus Quest

There have already been several blog posts and articles on how to port an existing VR game to the Quest. So we figured what better way to celebrate Falcon Age coming to the Oculus Quest than to write another one!

So what we did was reduced the draw calls, reduced the poly counts, and removed some visual effects to lower the CPU and GPU usage allowing us to keep a constant 72 hz. Just like everyone else!

Thank you for coming to our Tech talk. See you next year!

...

Okay, you probably want more than that.

Falcon Age

So let's talk a bit about the original PlayStation VR and PC versions of the game and a couple of the things we thought were important about that experience we wanted to keep beyond the basics of the game play.

Loading Screens Once you’re past the main menu and into the game, Falcon Age has no loading screens. We felt this was important to make the world feel like a real place the player could explore. But this comes at some cost in needing to be mindful of the number of objects active at one time. And in some ways even more importantly the number of objects that are enabled or disabled at one time. In Unity there can be a not insignificant cost to enabling an object. So much so that this was a consideration we had to be mindful of on the PlayStation 4 as loading a new area could cause a massive spike in frame time causing the frame rate to drop. Going to the Quest this would be only more of an issue.

Lighting & Environmental Changes While the game doesn’t have a dynamic time of day, different areas have different environmental setups. We dynamically fade between different types of lighting, skies, fog, and post processing to give areas a unique feel. There are also events and actions the player does in the game that can cause these to happen. This meant all of our lighting and shadows were real time, along with having custom systems for handling transitioning between skies and our custom gradient fog.

Our skies are all hand painted clouds and horizons cube maps on top of Procedural Sky from the asset store that handles the sky color and sun circle with some minor tweaks to allow fading between different cube maps. Having the sun in the sky box be dynamic allowed the direction to change without requiring totally new sky boxes to be painted.

Our gradient fog works by having a color gradient ramp stored in a 1 by 64 pixel texture that is sampled using spherical distance exp2 fog opacity as the UVs. We can fade between different fog types just by blending between different textures and sampling the blended result. This is functionally similar to the fog technique popularized by Campo Santo’s Firewatch, though it is not applied as a post process as it was for that game. Instead all shaders used in the game were hand modified to use this custom fog instead of Unity’s built in fog.

Post processing was mostly handled by Unity’s own Post Processing Stack V2, which includes the ability to fade between volumes which the custom systems extended. While we knew not all of this would be able to translate to the Quest, we needed to retain as much of this as possible.

The Bird At its core, Falcon Age is about your interactions with your bird. Petting, feeding, playing, hunting, exploring, and cooperating with her. One of the subtle but important aspects of how she “felt” to the player was her feathers, and the ability for the player to pet her and have her and her feathers react. She also has special animations for perching on the player’s hand or even individual fingers, and head stabilization. If at all possible we wanted to retain as much of this aspect of the game, even if it came at the cost of other parts.

You can read more about the work we did on the bird interactions and AI in a previous dev blog posts here: https://outerloop.tumblr.com/post/177984549261/anatomy-of-a-falcon

Taking on the Quest

Now, there had to be some compromises, but how bad was it really? The first thing we did was we took the PC version of the game (which natively supports the Oculus Rift) and got that running on the Quest. We left things mostly unchanged, just with the graphics settings set to very low, similar to the base PlayStation 4 PSVR version of the game.

It ran at less than 5 fps. Then it crashed.

Ooph.

But there’s some obvious things we could do to fix a lot of that. Post processing had to go, just about any post processing is just too expensive on the Quest, so it was disabled entirely. We forced all the textures in the game to be at 1/8th resolution, that mostly stopped the game from crashing as we were running out of memory. Next up were real time shadows, they got disabled entirely. Then we turned off grass, and pulled in some of the LOD distances. These weren’t necessarily changes we would keep, just ones to see what it would take to get the performance better. And after that we were doing much better.

A real, solid … 50 fps.

Yeah, nope.

That is still a big divide between where we were and the 72 fps we needed to be at. It became clear that the game would not run on the Quest without more significant changes and removal of assets. Not to mention the game did not look especially nice at this point. So we made the choice of instead of trying to take the game as it was on the PlayStation VR and PC and try to make it look like a version of that with the quality sliders set to potato, we would need to go for a slightly different look. Something that would feel a little more deliberate while retaining the overall feel.

Something like this.

Optimize, Optimize, Optimize (and when that fails delete)

Vertex & Batch Count

One of the first and really obvious things we needed to do was to bring down the mesh complexity. On the PlayStation 4 we were pushing somewhere between 250,000 ~ 500,000 vertices each frame. The long time rule of thumb for mobile VR has been to be somewhere closer to 100,000 vertices, maybe 200,000 max for the Quest.

This was in some ways actually easier than it sounds for us. We turned off shadows. That cut the vertex count down significantly in many areas, as many of the total scene’s vertex count comes from rendering the shadow maps. But the worse case areas were still a problem.

We also needed to reduce the total number of objects and number of materials being used at one time to help with batching. If you’ve read any other “porting to Quest” posts by other developers this is all going to be familiar.

This means combining textures from multiple object into atlases and modifying the UVs of the meshes to match the new position in the atlas. In our case it meant completely re-texturing all of the rocks with a generic atlas rather than having every rock use a custom texture set.

Now you might think we would want also reduce the mesh complexity by a ton. And that’s true to an extent. Counter intuitively some of the environment meshes on the Quest are more complex than the original version. Why? Because as I said we were looking to change the look. To that end some meshes ended up being optimized to far low vertex counts, and others ended up needing a little more mesh detail to make up for the loss in shading detail and unique texturing. But we went from almost every mesh in the game having a unique texture to the majority of environment objects sharing a small handful of atlases. This improved batching significantly, which was a much bigger win than reducing the vertex count for most areas of the game.

That’s not to say vertex count wasn’t an issue still. A few select areas were completely pulled out and rebuilt as new custom merged meshes in cases where other optimizations weren’t enough. Most of the game’s areas are built using kit bashing, reusing sets of common parts to build out areas. Parts like those rocks above, or many bits of technical & mechanical detritus used to build out the refineries in the game. Making bespoke meshes let us remove more hidden geometry, further reduce object counts, and lower vertex counts in those problem areas.

We also saw a significant portion of the vertex count coming from the terrain. We are using Unity’s built in terrain system. And thankfully we didn’t have to start from total scratch here as simply increasing the terrain component's Pixel Error automatically reduces the complexity of the rendered terrain. That dropped the vertex count even more getting us closer to the target budget without significantly changing the appearance of the geometry.

After that many smaller details were removed entirely. I mentioned before we turned off grass entirely. We also removed several smaller meshes from the environment in various places where we didn’t think their absence would be noticed. As well as removed or more aggressively disabled out of view NPCs in some problem areas.

Shader Complexity

Another big cost was most of the game was using either a lightly modified version of Unity’s Standard shader, or the excellent Toony Colors Pro 2 PBR shader. The terrain also used the excellent and highly optimized MicroSplat. But these were just too expensive to use as they were. So I wrote custom simplified shaders for nearly everything.

The environment objects use a simplified diffuse shading only shader. It had support for an albedo, normal, and (rarely used) occlusion texture. Compared to how we were using the built in Standard shader this cut down the number of textures a single material could use by more than half in some cases. This still had support for the customized gradient fog we used throughout the game, as well as a few other unique options. Support for height fog was built into the shader to cover a few spots in the game where we’d previously used post processing style methods to achieve. I also added support for layering with the terrain’s texture to hide a few places where there were transitions from terrain to mesh.

Toony Colors Pro 2 is a great tool, and is deservedly popular. But the PBR shader we were using for characters is more expensive than even the Standard shader! This is because the way it’s implemented is it’s mostly the original Standard Shader with some code on top to modify the output. Toony Colors Pro 2 has a large number of options for modifying and optimizing what settings to use. But in the end I wrote a new shader from scratch that mimicked some of the aspects we liked about it. Like the environment shader it was limited to diffuse shading, but added a Fresnel shine.

The PSVR and PC terrain used MicroSplat with 12 different terrain layers. MicroSplat makes these very fast and much cheaper to render than the built in terrain rendering. But after some testing we found we couldn’t support more than 4 terrain layers at a time without really significant drops in performance. So we had to go through and completely repaint the entire terrain, limiting ourselves to only 4 texture layers.

Also, like the other shaders mentioned above, the terrain was limited to diffuse only shading. MicroSplat’s built in shader options made this easy, and apart from the same custom fog support added for the original version, it didn’t require any modifications.

Post Processing, Lighting, and Fog

The PSVR and PC versions of Falcon Age makes use of color grading, ambient occlusion, bloom, and depth of field. The Quest is extremely fill rate limited, meaning full screen passes of anything are extremely expensive, regardless of how simple the shader is. So instead of trying to get this working we opted to disable all post processing. However this resulted in the game being significantly less saturated. And in extreme cases completely different. To make up for this the color of the lighting and the gradient fog was tweaked to make up for this. This is probably the single biggest factor in the overall appearance of the original versions of the game and the Quest version not looking quite the same.

Also as mentioned before we disabled real time shadows. We discussed doing what many other games have done which is move to baked lighting, or at least pre-baked shadows. We decided against this for a number of reasons. Not the least of which was our game is mostly outdoors so shadows weren’t as important as it might have been for many other games. We’ve also found that simple real time lighting can often be faster than baked lighting, and that certainly proved to be true for this game.

However the lack of shadows and screen space ambient occlusion meant that there was a bit of a disconnect between characters in the world and the ground. So we added simple old school blob shadows. These are simple sprites that float just above the terrain or collision geometry, using a raycast from a character’s center of mass, and sometimes from individual feet. There’s a small selection of basic blob shapes and a few unique shapes for certain feet shapes to add a little extra bit of ground connection. These are faded out quickly in the distance to reduce the number of raycasts needed.

Falcon

Apart from the aforementioned changes to the shading, which was also applied to the falcon’s custom shaders, we did almost nothing to the bird. All the original animations, reaction systems, and feather interactions remained. The only thing we did to the bird was simplify a few of the bird equipment and toy models. The bird models themselves remained intact.

I did say we thought this was important at the start. And we early on basically put a line in the sand and said we were going to keep everything enabled on the bird unless absolutely forced to disable it.

There was one single sacrifice to the optimization gods we couldn’t avoid though. That’s the trails on the bird’s wings. We were making use of Ara Trails, which produce very high quality and configurable trails with a lot more control than Unity’s built in systems. These weren’t really a problem for rendering on the GPU, but CPU usage was enough that it made sense to pull them.

Selection Highlights

This is perhaps an odd thing to call out, but the original game used a multi pass post process based effect to draw the highlight outlines on objects for both interaction feedback and damage indication. These proved to be far too expensive to use on the Quest. So I had to come up with a different approach. Something like your basic inverted shell outline, like so many toon stylized games use, would seem like the perfect approach. However we never built the meshes to work with that kind of technique, and even though we were rebuilding large numbers of the meshes in the game anyway, some objects we wanted to highlight proved difficult for this style of outline. 

With some more work it would have been possible to make this an option. But instead I found an easier to implement approach that, on the face, should have been super slow. But it turns out the Quest is very efficient at handling stencil masking. This is a technique that lets you mark certain pixels of the screen so that subsequent meshes being rendered can ask to not be rendered in. So I render the highlighted object 6 times! With 4 of those times slightly offset in screen space in the 4 diagonal directions. The result is a fairly decent looking outline that works on arbitrary objects, and was cheap enough to be left enabled on everything that it had been on before, including objects that might cover the entire screen when being highlighted.

Particles and General VFX

For the PSVR version of the game, we already had two levels of VFX in the game to support the base Playstation 4 and Playstation 4 Pro with different kinds of particle systems. The Quest version started out with these lower end particle systems to begin with, but it wasn’t enough. Across the board the number and size of particles had to be reduced. With some effects removed or replaced entirely. This was both for CPU performance as the sheer number of particles was a problem and GPU performance as the screen area the particles covered became a problem for the Quest’s reduced fill rate limitations.

For example the baton had an effect that included a few very simple circular glows on top of electrical arcs and trailing embers. The glows covered enough of the screen to cause a noticeable drop in framerate even just holding it by your side. Holding it up in front of your face proved too expensive to keep framerate in even the simplest of scenes. 

Similar the number of embers had to be reduced to improve the CPU impact. The above comparison image only shows the removal of the glow and already has the reduced particle count applied.

Another more substantive change was the large smoke plumes. You may have already noticed the difference in some of the previous comparisons above. In the original game these used regular sprites. But even reducing the particle count in half the rendering cost was too much. So these were replaced with mesh cylinders using a shader that makes them ripple and fade out. Before changing how they were done the areas where the smoke plumes are were unable to keep the frame rate above 72 fps any time they were in view. Sometimes dipping as low as 48 hz. Afterwards they ceased to be a performance concern.

Those smoke plumes originally made use of a stylized smoke / explosion effect. That same style of effect is reused frequently in the game for any kind of smoke puff or explosion. So while they were removed for the smoke stacks, they still appeared frequently. Every time you take out a sentry or drone your entire screen was filled with these smoke effects, and the frame rate would dip below the target. With some experimentation we found that counter to a lot of information out there, using alpha tested (or more specifically alpha to coverage) particles proved to be far more efficient to render than the original alpha blended particles with a very similar overall appearance. So that plus some other optimizations to those shaders and the particle counts of those effects mean multiple full screen explosions did not cause a loss in frame rate.

The two effects are virtually identical in appearance, ignoring the difference in lighting and post processing. The main difference here is the Quest explosion smoke is using dithered alpha to coverage transparency. You can see if you look close enough, even with the gif color dithering.

Success!

So after all that we finally got to the goal of a 72hz frame rate! Coming soon to an Oculus Quest near you!

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2327302830679091/

[dailyaudiobible]

11/27/2020 DAB Transcript

Daniel 4:1-37, 2 Peter 1:1-21, Psalms 119:97-112, Proverbs 28:17-18

Today's the 27th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here like I tell you every day because I'm telling you the truth. Every day it's wonderful, wonderful to come and take a place at the Global Campfire and be together and take the next step forward. And there are some days that just being able to come here and take the next step forward and saying I'm not not doing that, I've never not, I've never stopped doing that. That is the one thing I will do every day that makes a difference. So, it is a joy. It's wonderful to be here with you today. And we are continuing our journey to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. When we get to the New Testament today, we will begin another letter, second Peter. We concluded first Peter yesterday and just a heads up, like I now it's the day after Thanksgiving here and this is Black Friday and this is traditionally like the beginning of the holiday season and things just kinda ramp up and get at warp speed by the time it's over. As we continue and push toward the end of the Bible the Bible's gonna kind of do that too and we’re going to be moving through a number of smaller writings, not just in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well. And, so, we’re gonna be changing books often throughout the rest of this year. But we’ll talk about them like we’ve talked about everything else and we'll talk about second Peter when we get to second Peter. But first we need to read from the book of Daniel. We’re reading from the New International Version this week. Daniel chapter 4. And we will remember that we had the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace yesterday. And, so, as we move into the territory today, we begin reading a letter from King Nebuchadnezzar.

Introduction to Second Peter:

Okay. So, we find ourselves at the…at the threshold of the New Testament reading for today, which as I said at the beginning brings us into some new territory, what is thought to be the final writing of the apostle Peter as he's elderly and…and execution is before him, but it's worth noting…and I mean the Bible…there’s not a book that every word hasn't been poured over for thousands of years. And, so, like many other portions of Scripture whether or not this is the apostle Peter's writing or not has been questioned and that dates well back into antiquity. It’s actually, that this letter became accepted as an authentic letter of Peter over time. And by the time we reach the fourth century then this letter...this letter had found its place in the canon of the New Testament. But even still today the things that were suspect, if you want to call it that, in antiquity have carried forward. And scholars today observed that there is a vast difference stylistically between first and second Peter. And, so, on the one hand, those defending the authorship of Peter would say that the stylistic differences arise because Peter more than likely was illiterate and was dictating his letters to a secretary, to someone who wrote them down. And it just happens that one person wrote down what Peter dictated in first Peter and a different person wrote down what Peter dictated in…in second Peter. Then, on the flipside of that, there would be other scholars that would argue against that theory put forth other theories about what could be. And all in all, we kind of come to a similar place that we would…we would with the book of Hebrews. We’re not exactly hundred percent sure. What we are sure of is that this letter mattered and was preserved and was copied and was carried forward and over time became part of the New Testament. If Peter wrote this letter then it's the last thing, it's like the last leaving words of the apostle Peter, probably somewhere in the late 60s, A.D., and then he would have been martyred, but shortly thereafter. Church tradition holds that Peter was crucified upside down in…in Rome and also that Paul was, martyred, executed by beheading in Rome and that these things happened close together. So, that would make second Peter and second Timothy, the last writings of Paul and Peter, somewhat contemporary with each other. So, second Peter doesn’t explicit…explicitly say who…who…who the recipients are to be. He says, “I'm writing to you who share the same precious faith that we have.” And we can assume that that is to the same people that received the first letter. But what hopeful words, “he's writing to you who share the same precious faith we have.” That's us brothers and sisters. So, this letter has spanned thousands of years and been read by probably billions of brothers and sisters over the years but now we’re gonna read it because we hold that…share that same precious faith they did. So, Peter wrote the first letter just to encourage people who were being marginalized, people who were being pushed to the side and suppressed and were not sure when Jesus was gonna come back, and how this was all gonna work. And it’s just the culture was crushing them, and they were moving around. So, he's encouraging them to endure and he's encouraging them to stay true when and continue to walk forward. Second Peter, what we’re about to read warns more about false teachings and…and the behaviors that can erode a community from within. And as we do with second Timothy, when we consider what's in that letter and instructions to bring a coat, because Paul's in a dungeon and his parchments and….it’s just such a melancholy scene, we should understand then that this could very likely be the last things that Peter wrote down and the last words that we would hear from Peter in the Bible. And we got to know Peter. He walked with Jesus. I've been to Israel so many times now that I can just picture the Sea of Galilee in my mind and just picture Jesus with the…with the boats, with the fishermen and Him meeting Peter and calling Peter and knowing that Peter walked with Jesus around the Sea of Galilee, and saw His ministry, and saw the miracles, and laughed with Him and...and had all kinds of conversations with Him over the course of three years that…that aren't in the Bible, all kinds of a relationship that was there, this disciple that denied Jesus and that Jesus restored and that stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached the gospel with boldness and 3000 people came to follow the Savior. This is the person that was in the garden of Gethsemane with Him. This is the person that watched Him die. But this is also the person that saw Him raised back to life again. So, we’re…we’re basically saying goodbye to Peter for this year anyway. And, so, let's give this letter it's honor. Second Peter, chapter 1.

Prayer:

Father once again, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for the daily interaction that we’re able to have with it and the change that that makes. That rhythm changes so much. We look back over a year that is unforgettable, although in some respects we might like to forget it. It's been quite an interesting year. How would we have navigated without this rhythm without coming together in community and letting Your word speak to us. It has rescued us on so many occasions and corrected us, just taken the wind out of all kinds of situations that we would've wandered into and caused mayhem. Thank You for Your kindness. Thank You for the Scriptures to guide our lives. And as this year accelerates and as each day when we’re moving through the Scriptures as that accelerates and we encounter new territory more often, come Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth, illuminate Your word. Make it a lamp for our feet and a light for our path as…as we read in the Psalms today. We need You. We can’t do this by ourselves. We can certainly read a book over and over and over, but it's Holy Spirit that comes and illuminates and makes things alive to us, shifts things, shifts our thoughts, words and deeds and we are grateful and we humble ourselves before You. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, its where you find out what’s going on around here. This is…this is Black Friday. I think it’s Black Friday no matter where you are in the world pretty much. This is the day that although all of these kind of advance Black Friday marketing things have been going on for a long time, it’s kind of like the official day, it's always been the tradition of, “this is…this is when you start shopping for Christmas. And, so, each year…well…not every year, but for less…more…more than a decade we've kind of participated in Black Friday. Usually we have a Christmas box, actually for years and years and years and years we’ve had a Christmas box stuffed full of all kinds of goodies, stuff that you’re gonna want to keep, stuff that you’re gonna want to give away. We don't have that this year. We determined a few months ago with just…I mean COVID…just I mean the whole…everything being so disruptive…disrupted and the ability to actually do that with excellence, just knowing what it takes to do it this season in the weeks of December, just determined that it is near impossible to…to…to achieve a high level of excellence. And, so, I just decided, “you know what? This has been a really, really strange year. And a lot of things…and a lot of places around the world…like a lot of things have had to change and find new rhythms.” And, so, this is one of the ways in which we've had to kind of adjust as well; however, that doesn't mean you can't make up your own Christmas box by going to the shop dailyaudiobible.com and looking through the resources there that…well like I…like I said a second ago, some things, you may just want for yourself, you may want to carry with you into the future commemorating the year in the Bible that we've had together. And there may be many, many things that are worth looking at and giving as gifts. For example, the God of Your Story is a resource that we brought out last year around this time and it is really…it's a 365 day, dated companion along with the Daily Audio Bible or if you're ever disconnected from the Internet or traveling or whatever it…it brings the essence of the journey that we’re on. It brings daily commentary. It’s basically, the kinds of stuff we talk about on the Daily Audio Bible, it's written down and organized in a daily fashion. And if you don’t have the God of Your Story, and it…it really is a…it was written…it was birthed out of this community, created for this community, its heartbeat is this community. It's the gold of the things, the commentary, the things we talk about as we move through the Bible in written form. It’s just one resource that's there and available. And what we’re doing this year is putting most everything on sale, as much as we possibly can. And one of the fun unique things about the Daily Audio Bible Christmas box that’s been true, every year we've created a Christmas ornament for each year. I think we began it in 2013. So, when Ezekiel was one, the year after his birth. And we’ve carried that forward. We have them this year. Any order of $40 or more when we’re gonna send you the Christmas ornament in your order for free. So, check out the Daily Audio Bible shop for all of your Black Friday needs. I don’t even know. I have had like every conceivable Black Friday marketing push pushed my way. I even got one add for a bleak Friday sale since it's been kind of a quote unquote bleak year. And I’m trying not to look at it like that. It’s been a hard year, but it's been a year of incredible eye-opening. But I don’t know the right words to tell you that we have this Black Friday sale other than to tell you we have this Black Friday sale. This what happens around this time year. We have a lot of really really good resources that make really great gifts and fantastic invitations, direct invitations to take the journey. But like this isn’t the big gift around here the Scriptures? And Isn't the big gift around here each other? So, anyway, it’s Black Friday and we have a big sale going on in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, which you can find at dailyaudioobible.com then just click Shop up at the top or if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, just push the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and push Shop and it'll take you there.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I thank you humbly, humbly thank you for your partnership as we make our last push toward the end of the year. There is a link on the homepage. If you're using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Victory Michelle from New York I’m calling because I want to encourage Sheer Joy. I think you said you’re from Alabama. I’m calling on November 17th…November 22nd, sorry. Just want to let you know I know how you feel about going through all the sheer panic and anxiety and fear because I’ve been through it myself and am getting help to. Sometimes that help is prayer, sometimes that help is my family, sometimes that help comes from the form of medication and that’s okay to because God made medication, doctors as well. Just praying that you get the help you need. If you pray this prayer with me, I think it will help. Just repeat after me. Dear God, I loose from my soul right now as an act of my will all my fears and anxieties. I rebuke the spirit of fear in Jesus name and I bind to my soul love, faith, peace, and the sheer joy of God in Jesus name. I’ll be praying for you and don’t stay away from the Daily Audio Bible. That’s one thing that’s been an anchor to me. It’s really the enemies thought that you stay away from the Bible and that God is gonna condemn you or something. He’s not. He’s not gonna condemn you or come after you just because you’ve been away from Him. That’s really from the enemy. So, don’t believe the lie. Listen to Daily Audio Bible every day. It will be a great anchor to you. Okay. Thank you and goodbye.

Good evening Daily Audio Bible family this is Rhonda the Prayer Warrior from Chicago and I am calling to say hello. This is the first time I’m calling in. I’m also calling to say, to ask for prayer because I have been having a situation in my body called Demetra myositis which has kept me from having strong muscle movement in my entire body and I am looking for a solution to this situation. I’m praying that all is well with you all. Pray for me as I have been praying for you all throughout this year of 2020. God bless you all. Bye for now.

[singing starts] May your name be praised in all the earth. May your name be praised in all the earth hallelujah, hallelujah. In all the earth may your name be praised. Glory glory to you alone for you are God the only one. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.  In all the earth may your name be praised [singing stops]. Oh Lord may your people bless your holy name. May your name be lifted up and may people who are about to come into your kingdom Lord be protected and introduced to you clearly and I pray Lord that your good news of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior will spread throughout the earth at this time. In Jesus’ name and for His sake. Candace from Oregon.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Pamela from Pennsylvania and I am just getting caught up, I’m on October 9th. I’m really enjoying listening to one after the other after the other just seamlessly. It’s really very uplifting and blessing my spirit. I’m responding to the call from Sonia from Austin Texas. It really resonated with me. My father was schizophrenic, and my father committed suicide when I was 16 years old. I’ve been haunted much of my life from the events of my childhood and visiting him in a mental institution where he was locked down. It was like a prison. I don’t think my mother should’ve taken us there. But anyway, God has finally healed all of that pain. My father’s suicide haunted me for 3 years or 15 years sorry but God has healed that and God has also allowed me to minister to my son who has been through so much trauma in his 22 years and has been suicidal most of his life. I’ve been sick, very very sick for 20 years of his life and that was part of it. I could not protect him. But up to recently he has…he still feels he wants to be with God not here, but he has agreed not to do anything to harm himself while I am still walking on this earth. So, that’s a blessing to me. God bless everyone. I love you all. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Hello this is RY calling from California, first-time caller but I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible for about 10 years now. I just wanted to say…oh…I’m responding to the November 24th podcast talking about living above the stereotype. I am a black American. So, it definitely hit home, your message resonated with me Brian. I agree, not only as a black American but then also being a Christian. You see, you know, where our countries in a post-Christian society, Christians are more and more being stereotyped in a negative way and what resonated to me was when you said the example starts at home. When you live amongst nonbelievers you have to live above the stereotype, so they have something to aspire to mentally in terms of how they view Christians. And I just want to say thank you, I appreciate your message. Thank you for your words on that and it’s a good reminder for me to live above the stereotype, not only with within my own racial group but also as a disciple and really give people some hope that there is a better way and a different way to live, that they don’t have to live according to the lowest common denominator.